There are few places where people get their collective geek on like Burning Man. A lot of folks are staying home this year -- Violet Blue gives some good reasons why -- and taking a chance to relax on the full-press coverage and pimp as much anti-party legislation as they can while the freak vote is out of town.

Of course, just because you decided not to crash diet to look good in your sand-filled hot pants, it doesn't mean you can't participate, at least as a voyeur. Al "I Smoked Pot and I Liked It" Gore's Current TV has loaned some burners a bunch of video equipment to produce TV Free Burning Man. Of course, plenty of folks will be posting their photos on Flickr as well.

You can browse and mark up annotated satellite maps of the local area. There are also special graphic overlays for virtual fly-throughs using Google Earth. And if you want to get geekier, a virtual burn in Second Life, where yes, the avatars are gettin' naked and gettin' it on.

Photo by Dan Dawson.