I've been what I think of as "severely" disconnected this week. As of Monday morning, I've been almost entirely without net access, save a couple chances to log on and check email at the hotel where Tuesday's MSDN event was.

I can't believe what I've missed.

First, Chris posts one hell of a fine write up of his experiences at this year's Burning Man festival. While I enjoyed the descriptions of the dust, the nudity, and his man gown, what I liked most was the bit on how uncomfortable he felt surrounded by legions of veteran Burning Man weirdos. In a way, it seems like Chris went as a sort of Geek Ambassador, having an experience very similar to what many of the rest of us would have had. I, for one, would probably have felt very similarly, preferring to observe rather than participate (at least at first). Interesting stuff.

Anyway, got a little side tracked there.

The other thing that blew me away this week is that there is not one, but two remakes of War of the Worlds in progress. I look back on the first WOTW film as one of the high points of my childhood. It wasn't at all faithful to the book, but who gives a damn? "Not I," said me.

What's cool is that, of the two remakes coming, one will be very faithful to the book, while the other will be set in a completely different time. That's so cool that I can hardly contain myself, although I will continue to contain myself in any event given that I think my internal organs will only be useful as long as they continue to be internal. You don't hear about many people with external organs, do you? And, if you do, you don't hear about them for very long. That's because it turns out that living is harder when your internal organs aren't inside of you.

Sorry. Got side tracked again.

I wish that this happened more often with movies. I don't see anything wrong with the idea that there will be two movies based on the same story coming out relatively close to each other. It's going to be great seeing the differences between the two - seeing what works, what doesn't, and so on.

My only regret is that, while there will one day be several versions of War of the Worlds, there won't be a single version of John Wyndham's The Kraken Wakes, nor will there be a single good version of his Day of the Triffids. Given that Wyndham, in terms of classic sci-fi writers, was leaps and bounds ahead of Wells in terms of imagination, writing ability, and general fabulousness, this makes me sad.

But these things happen. It's more difficult to have good taste in things than to just give up and read Michael Crichton like everybody else.