Man vs. Wild

With the college bowl season now over, and the NFL Playoffs winding down, I'm going have to fill my nights with my new obsession: "Man vs. Wild" on the Discovery Channel.

Next to "24" and "Boston Legal," this is easily one of the best shows on television. If you haven't seen it, your doing yourself a disservice. The show stars Bear Grylls, a former member of the British Special Forces. At the beginning of every episode, he gets dropped into the kind of wilderness for which the expression "God forsaken" was invented. The kind of places that make the camps on "Survivor" look like Sandals: Jamaica.

I've already seen Bear survive in the Alps, Alaska, a deserted island, the African savannah and the Mohave desert. He has to make do with usually just the clothes on his back, a knife and a piece of flint. He's got five days to get his ass rescued. There's a camera crew, but they're not part of the show and can only help him if his life is in danger. So far it hasn't happened.

Grylls is a walking encyclopedia of survival tips. He's pulled maggots out of an animal carcass and used them as bait to catch fish in a frozen pond, then eaten the fish raw. He's caught a rattlesnake for dinner. He's squeezed water out of a pile of elephant dung. And in my favorite moment, kept himself cool in the desert by peeing on his headdress.

That's a hell of an inspiration to a guy like me, who can't survive a three-hour football game without a jumbo bag of Chex Party Mix and a 12-pack of Coors Light.

Here's a link to You Tube with one of his survival eating habits. Other clips to the right of the page.