Back in October 2001, I wrote a brief entry about the movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers – and how it could quite easily lend itself to being remade every 20 or so years.

It’s already been remade three times – at roughly 20-30 year intervals – and plans are afoot for another remake.

Let’s hope it’s as good as the previous versions.

The latest 200 Words is now available, with Dr Michael Bader.

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines passed a couple of hours for me last night.

It’s very easy to be critical of this type of big-budget, Hollywood action blockbuster, but we tend to forget that movies like this tend to make lots of money, and often entertain millions of people.

Who cares if they don’t win any Oscars?

Whilst it managed to keep me reasonably entertained for a brief spell, it didn’t quite have the finesse or edge of James Cameron’s earlier installments, but it wasn’t all bad.

I didn’t find myself being particularly surprised by anything in the movie – unlike the revolutionary T1000 morphing special effects in T2: Judgement Day – and whilst the lovely Kristiana Loken carried out her role as the gorgeous TX without too much of a challenge, she seemed more like an embittered girlfriend than a shape-changing ultra-terminatrix from the future.

The less said about Nick Stahl and Claire Danes the better.

The whole movie gave me the feeling of having been badly edited by studio executives, deliberately condensing what should have been a 150-minute movie into an extended 90-minute car-chase sequence that left shattered fragments of a half-decent plot smoldering in a trail of burning vehicles.

With Cameron’s two outings the plot was polished, the dialogue was comic-book crisp and witty – and Big Arnie’s lines were deliberately written to avoid any thick accent conflicts and give the impression to the audience that he was actually a machine.

I’m certain there will be more Terminator movies to come – the ending pretty much guarantees that, but unless a David Fincher or a John Woo takes the helm, I can’t imagine them being any better than this.

If you take a trip to see T3, watch out for the frenetic fisticuffs scene between Arnie and Kristiana in the toilets of a military installation.

One of the world’s biggest news agencies, CNN, can’t get their website up and running because of the power cut in the USA, yet a guy with a mobile phone/camera can post the latest images to his Blackout moblog.

Brilliant.

Homer Simpson failed to turn up for work today at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant.

Surreal.

Today will be memorable for a few things, but most notably for the temperature in the UK reaching 100 degrees Fahrenheit for the first time in history.

In fact, it actually reached 38.1C (100.6F) in Gravesend, Kent – an all time high since records began.

And believe me, it was hotter than Hell here in Scotland too.

Also in the news today:

Manchster United won the Community Sheild on penalties against Arsenal.

Reports emerged that Prince William killed a deer with a spear (his grandad will be undoubtedly thrilled to hear that one).

Flashmobbing hits the headlines.

And Gregory Hines died, aged 57.

Nothing irritates me more than tabloid sensationalism of a sensitive story.

In today’s Daily Record newspaper, a story appears about young Adam Shad, a teenager who has gone missing in the Loch Lomond area of Scotland.

According to various reports, Adam suffers from memory problems, due to a recent head trauma. By all accounts, he has a low mental age, suffers from blackouts and has difficulty sleeping.

Effectively, he has reduced mental capacity, and poor memory skills. He may be 15 years old, but he presents as around age 10 or 11.

However, the Daily Record have wholly misrepresented the poor boy and his anxious family by comparing his circumstances and mental condition to the character of Leonard Shelby in the Christopher Nolan movie Memento.

In fact, the fictional Leonard suffered from a very rare, trauma-induced condition known as anterograde amnesia – where the sufferer has an inability to process new memories.

Short-term memory in anterograde amnesia sufferers is generally unaffected, and although the individual can often present as very plausible and coherent – they simply cannot process new memories.

Tasks, on the other hand are an entirely different matter – since the brain’s ability to learn rote-fashion is processed in a different part of the brain from the portions that can be affected by anterograde amnesia.

Anterograde amnesia generally affects one of three main areas of the brain: the hippocampus and associated areas in the medial temporal lobes, the basal forebrain and the diencephalon.

Adam suffers from something entirely different – although the various media reports haven’t specified anything beyond learning difficulties – but it certainly isn’t anterograde amnesia.

Let’s hope he’s found safe and well.

Update at 1630BST: Adam has been found dead.