So printer died a horrible death, moment of silence for my little desk friend.    Moment over.  IT was a fast moment, it wasn't that nice a desk friend.  Nikki and I can't be without a printer, we use it constantly.  So I ordered a new one, and we went to Best Buy to pick it up.  Now, Nikki just got to order the components to put his new computer together, the same one we built for me around Christmas, only he gets it $100 cheaper because prices go down with time.  LOL  So he was browsing around the store instead of heading strait to the customer pick up (I'm lazy, I like ordering online and making them get it together and picking it up at the desk, it also cuts out any attempts to alter my purchase and lets me read and research off the website about the item).  So I'm following him around, and i see a display.

There was a pair of vr goggles.  These are not the expensive Occulus ones (Thought they are powered by the technology)  I'm not sure what brand they are, but they are the ones that work with the Samsun smart phone and you can sorta clip your phone to them.  They're white, and sorta ugly.  But I was curious and I picked them up, and held them against my face to see.  It took a minute to figure out how to get the demo to start.

The demo starts.  It's a car racing through a tunnel.  Okay, whatever.  It's sorta neat, I don't see what the big deal is.  Probably great for people who like car games.  Then it announces something about underwater, and suddenly I'm standing under the ocean, and a NINE FOOT great white shark is gliding across in front of me.  Like maybe two feet away!  And it didn't look REAL exactly, but it did look almost real.  The textures weren't perfect, little details clued you in.  You could tell it was a video game sorta thing, but the feeling that you were standing IN THE GAME was so strong, that as I'm turning my head to follow the shark, and the view did follow my head movements really perfecting the illusion, I damn near jumped a mile because inches from my face was another great white facing me directly looking back at me that I didn't know was there because I actually could not see him until I turned my head like in real life.  I can only imagine what my face looked like to Nikki, I really had to remind myself the shark wasn't real, but I might have jumped. 

It was AMAZING.  I can't even describe how blown my mind was by those sharks. 

Then it switched to a space battle, and it really felt like I was one of those forlorn figures in the window watching an epic space battle in front of me, and I was thinking about the lives of the people in those ships, and wondering if they would come for me for a second. 

Then I was in a bloodstream, as it displayed it's educational opportunities for visual learners.  And I love science, so I was completely engrossed in watching the red and white cells drift by. 

After I put it down, my first thought was to an article I had read where they are three dimensionally filming Egyptian tombs so students, and probably virtual tourists, can be 'in' them and see them 'firsthand', and how very much I would love to do that. 

My mind was completely blown by how amazing this technology I really hadn't thought much about actually is.  So...that is what I'm going to be saving my small entertainment allowance in the new budget for.  Because I really, really want a virtual reality headset.  For gaming.  For exploring.  For feeling like I'm out of the house for a little bit in the winter when I can't leave. 

There was a Japanese animation show about a video game that was played in virtual reality a while back, called .Hack//Sign.  The basic story of the game is something sinister is happening and a player gets fully trapped in the game, and the show revolves around the events of trying to save 'him'.   (Spoilter - it's a female player, but that isn't revealed right away).  But through the show you get glimpses of the players lives, and why they are there, and why they form the friendships they do.  And one of them is a girl bound to a wheelchair.  She doesn't actually play the game, she just walks around in it.  Never levels, just...enjoys the feeling of the freedom she doesn't have in her actual life. It was a really powerful storyline, and I'm reminded of her as I wore those goggles and what this can mean to some people, where it's more than a game or a teaching tool. 

It's been ages since anything reminded me of the sheer potential we have as a species to create and expand our world, both outside and internally.