how do i learned .net

So i guess all the cool kids are learning c# and whatev.
Should I?

I'm not too keen on the virtual machine/bitcode witchcraft so basically what else am i missing?

The idea of a virtual machine is a good one - you write the code and compile it to an intermediary form.  This intermediary form can then be taken to any platform, and optimized for the local architecture by the virtual machine.  It can even spit out pure binary if its algorithms decide that is the most efficient way to do things.

Of course, .Net is full of failure due to its limited platform - thus reducing one of the major benefits of a virtual machine.