I’m really good at predicting the future. For instance, I knew by the year 2000, I would be married, have two kids, a boy and a girl and that my son would be fiscally responsible, and he would appreciate us so much for adopting him, that he would always listen to what we had to say to him.

Okay, I guess I’m not that good at predicting the future. I was married in the year 2000, but I didn’t have those kids until 2003, and 2007. The boy hasn’t figure out fiscal responsibility yet, but I’m sure by the year 3000 he will. By the way, did you know that the year 3000 is only 75 years away? How crazy is that? I’m just kidding. I know in 75 years it will only be 2100, but there was a girl that did a TikTok that thought that. Hopefully, someone got a hold of her and taught her how math works.

Another one of my predictions was a little off. About 8 years ago, my son and I were wandering around the mall, and came upon a store called Virtual Junkies. They had virtual reality headsets and we were both looking at it like we had to try it. I’m cheap and poor, so I told him that we could go for his birthday. What I should have remembered is that my kid is a bulldog and he doesn’t let go of something until he gets his way. He nagged me until I finally relented. Since I’m cheap, I just let him do it while I watched. I couldn’t resist recording him, because he was just flailing his arms at the air, and I now had blackmail against him for a future girlfriend.

Another couple of months later, I tried it. I was in Fuedal Japan, swinging a virtual sword to cut up fruit. Yes, I was playing Fruit Ninja in Virtual Reality. I finally understood what he was experiencing, and for a while, I thought VR was the future. Years later I was played Resident Evil 4, and about crapped my pants when my virtual gun didn’t work and I was being chased by zombies. I had to take the headset off after a few minutes of playing that one.

A few years after that, I saw the movie Ready Player One, and I was convinced that in a few years, Mark Zuckerberg would invent the Oasis and we would all be wearing VR headsets all day. Zuck must have thought the same thing, because he changed his whole company to Meta, and made some goofy looking meeting rooms, before that crashed and burned. Apple wasn’t immune either. Tim Cook from Apple foolishly stepped into the VR/AR world and came out with those Apple Vision Pro goggles. Meta and Apple Vision were such flops that Zuckerberg quit the whole thing and invested in AI. I had to look up what the Apple Vision goggles were even called.

Needless to say, me, Zuck and Timmy were all wrong about VR. Must have been the whole having to wear goofy looking goggles that gave you a headache after 30 minutes thing.

Me, Zuck, and Timmy weren’t the only ones duped by VR. About 8 years ago, there was this huge warehouse building that popped up near us that just had the words THE VOID on the outside of it. I was always intrigued by it, because it didn’t look like a standard business building. It looked liked something out of a sci-fi movie.

Every time we drove by it, I tried to remind myself to Google it, to find out what it was. After the 14th time, I finally remembered to look it up. It was a virtual reality experience. According to the website, it was “The Most Immersive Virtual Reality Destination…Ever”. Of course, I was stoked to try it, knowing that my brief experience with cutting fruit with a sword in fuedal Japan was so fun.

I kept waiting for the website to say something about pricing or dates when it would open, but I kept seeing nothing. I knew someone had tried it, because their website quoted Rolling Stone as saying this was “The Future of Entertainment” and Forbes said, “The most entertaining VR Experience currently available.”

Then one day, the VOID sign was taken down and replaced with a sign that said, “THE GRID”. The kept the THE and just replaced the four VO with the GR and kept the ID. It was turned into an indoor Mario Kart- like racing facility. The Void just got VOIDed.

AI, robots and self-driving cars are now all the rage, and VR basically is on life support, soon to be sent to the digital graveyard along with the VCR’s, MP3 players, and landline phones. But what happens when AI decides to drop out of school to take a gap year, and then never comes back? What about when robots crash out and don’t have medical insurance and end up laying at home and collecting unemployment? What happens when self-driving cars get fed up with the horrific working conditions and go on strike for better wages? Well, then we will all wish that we treated VR with more respect and it will come back and save us all.

We weren’t just weren’t ready for VR and now, we are paying the price. In the meantime, we will find a way to fill the void until it makes its comeback. In the meantime, we’re stuck looking at these Bitter Friday Giftures on a flat surface instead of being able to cut them up with our virtual swords…

I’m really good…

Like for instance…

And Blockbuster…

Good thing I have my free Blockbuster…

I also predicted that I would be married…

I got the married part right…

Who knows though…

My son convinced me that he had to do VR…

But then I tried Fruit Ninja in VR…

After seeing Ready Player One even Zuckerberg…

As did Timmy…

The big one in our area…

The world isn’t ready for VR yet…

When Robots…

And AI…

And self-driving cars…

VR will be there…

ARRRGGGGHHHHH

Bitter Into the VOID Ben