Oculus Rift

I woke this morning with the urge to post. The urge increased as I went through my (late--it's Sunday so I didn't get up early) morning routine. I had things to say. Things about the second taste of the sesame bread (which Dave liked and which hasn't caused either of us distress...yet), things about making another batch of killer smoothie. Things about practicing piano, the beauty of the sound of the alto Japanese scale windchimes in the light breeze. Just things. But I felt I needed to get my kiln load in before luxuriating in a post. So now the kiln is firing, and my earlier inspirations have gone away. The lesson learned is to take time to write when the fire of creativity strikes.

However there is one subject worth covering and that is our experience playing on the Oculus Rift (the gameplaying thingie referenced in yesterday's post) at Dave's office yesterday.  Wow. Just, wow. It is to playing video games what IMAX is to small movie theatre screens. Think of the first time you saw the undersea movie at teh IMAX and were sure you were going to eaten by the shark.

J and I both took turns on the OR and some of the things you can do/watch are very disorienting--like the Valkyrie game. Some of it is flat-out stunning (the intro to VR) and some of it is just so cool--the "home screen" which isn't a screen at all, it's a luxury home surrounding you with furnishings, art--and no dustbunnies or dirty dishes. Of course you have no body either so it's a bit disconcerting to look down. At least in Valkyrie you have a body--which totally creeped Jessie out when she looked down while playing. Apparently with just the right angle you see a headless body and that was just too much for her. I had to strain to get to see the top of the neck where the head should be--I mostly just saw my very cool, thin, black-leather-spacesuit-clad body.

As I played some mountain goat game I harkened back to hanging out at Keith and Mike's and watching Keith play Super Mario Brothers. It was an addictive game, and I'm glad I never had it as I could see myself playing for hours. The Oculus Rift is a similar toy. If we had one at home, Dave and Jessie would leave for the day and I would just sit and play in my own little world all day. Dave did not try it out, though you can hear him snorting in the background in one of the videos as Jessie tried to take the controller away from me. When I think of some of the visually stunning (and disturbing), intense (and disturbing), and dark (did I mention disturbing?) video games he likes to play, like the Bioshock series and Batman Arkham I can't imagine them for the OR. Those were creepy enough on the big screen tv being surrounded by those worlds would drive me insane. Now back to Conman and Pokemon Go. Need to give my sensory input a rest.