TGIF! There’s nothing on today, unless you’re a sicko like me watching the Frenchy bike race replay. I had to get it in early because the power company has decided I won’t have any after 9pm BCT today. Fortunately, the vodka is frozen, and the kindle is charged.

Survival – Personal Edition

Let’s say you made the mistake of planting bamboo. And let’s say you are in a warm and moist climate that promotes and accelerates bamboo growth. Well, you’re going to need to do something with that bamboo. So, let’s make a fire! As all of you erudite readers know, bamboo is essentially wood, so this will be easy.

• Alright, this first part is not so easy. You need dried bamboo. So you’ll need to cut a length of bamboo stalk off in advance and let it dry out. You’ll know it’s dried out sufficiently when it changes to brown in color.
• Now, cut that sucker in half length wise. The grain of the bamboo will make this easy, but just to be sure, get the biggest and sharpest machete you can. Watch those fingers though.
• Take one of those halves, and lay it on the ground, round side down, middle part up. Secure it in place on each end with wooden stakes. No, not through the middle of the bamboo half stalk. Angle them into the ground at an angle to support the bamboo half stalk.
• On the other half stalk, we’re going to make a notch through it. This notch needs to be about one inch wide on the outside (rounded) part of the half stalk, and just a slit on the inside of the half stalk.
• Now shave out the filament from this stalk with your huge and sharp machete and pile it up over that notch. This is your tinder!
• We’re almost ready, but first we need something to keep a sustained fire. So go forage up a bunch of small, dried wood sticks. They’ll burn longer than bamboo.
• Time for fire! Rub that notched stalk back and forth over the half stalk on the ground. It won’t happen right away, but eventually the friction will start smoking and then result in a fire.
• Once the fire starts, use those small wooden sticks to get a proper fire going.

Now, this might upset some giant pandas, but as stated before, there’s tons of bamboo and it regrows really fast. Seriously, up to 3 feet a day. They’ll be fine. In the meantime you have a nice fire to cook some panda meat. Haha, just kidding, don’t do that. Kill a cow instead, their meat is way better.

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Survival – Species Edition

Time to put the sexy in Friday!

Enjoy the weekend, folks! Alright, now let’s get to the comments!