What I learned during the Survivorman Marathon yesterday:

- Prison Match - one piece of tissue, rolled tightly, with one end open in a funnel/cup shape. Dime-size amount of cotton sock lint. One BIC lighter with functional flint. Insert lint in open end of tissue. Add spark.

- Check your supplies at your first opportunity, not on day two or three of an alpine descent when you have no tent or sleeping bag. It is possible to get tinder for a fire during a week of heavy rain.

- You can kill a 6' rattler with a stick, and it gives you a freak-out buzz after you eat it. Jiggers exist. Frog really does taste like chicken, and turtle tastes like fish.

- Polar bears won't necessarily kill you when they wander 30' past you sleeping defenselessly in the open.