Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Man Versus Wild



Man Versus Wild is my new little favorite show.

The man pictured above, Bear Grylls, gets dropped into severe remote areas of the earth and demonstrates the survival skills needed to stay alive and find his way toward civilization.

It's a real "Survivor" show and the guy is quite good. He's funny, articulate, and very edifying to watch. Also, he's one tough dude. The first show I watched he went floating 12 miles down some 40 degree rock-laden rapids. Last night I watched his Outback show and he was eating spiders, toting a massive live snake around his neck for miles to keep it fresh for dinner, and he had to drink his own pee (all day!) in order to stay hydrated in the sweltering (130 degree) Australian Outback.

Oh yeah, my brother-in-law was telling me that there's one episode where the guy picks up elephant dung, squeezes it, and drinks the juice!

The show is more then just stomach-turning nastiness - it teaches you some really important stuff. For example, I had no idea that when lost, you should always follow water downstream to find help.

Set your DVR and check it out.

6 comments:

Taylor Conant said...

A friend and I were watching Man vs. Wild once and I said, "Man, how the hell does he endure all of that?" and my friend pointed out that the guy is literally a Bear. So I think that explains it.

It's so funny, he'll be out on his excursions and even though he has a limited timeline to complete his survival mission and he knows he's finding a way out at the end of the day, he still gets really overcome with emotion at times. Makes you wonder how some of the people who actually do get lost keep hope alive as they look for a way out.

Anonymous said...

CN - It's my favorite new show too! I've watched every episode wondering when BG was going to seriously injure himself. He's been lucky so far!

Anonymous said...

CN - How come I don't get capital letters at the beginning of my first and last name (even though I typed them in capitals), but you do?

CaptiousNut said...

That is an HTML question far beyond my ken.

It looks as if when you click on the link to Man Versus Wild directly, the caps carry over. But if you first go to my main blog and then click on the comment thread your caps get chopped down to size. They did it to Taylor too.

Who in their right mind would ever sell BG life insurance. That is unless his cameraman has a GPS enabled cell phone, a machine gun, and a cooler of water on him at all times.

Anonymous said...

"For example, I had no idea that when lost, you should always follow water downstream to find help."

I'm pretty sure in the African Savannah episode (the one where he squeezes the elephant dung), he says the plains are an exception to that rule. He follows the river upstream in that episode.

CaptiousNut said...

Ah, I haven't seen that episode yet.

I would like to see him extricate himself from the projects of North Philadelphia. Shave his head, put combat boots on him, maybe put a Larry Bird shirt on him, and parachute him in!!!

I watched an episode of "Survivorman" last night. It looks to be in the same vein.