Things...

 Ok, so to update... I did fall victim to the temptation and preordered the Quest 2... in fact, I must admit, I ordered 2 of them (the intention is that one of them I will keep and the other will either be flipped on eBay or saved to give out as a Christmas gift.) I do envision that come Holiday Season this will be a hard to get item, so might as well bank on that.

Anyway... I just couldn't help myself, after the Facebook Connect announcement, all of the leaks were detemined true, including the price leak... this will be the absolute best value in VR and some of the most impressive technology as well. I will have to sell a bit of my soul with the new Facebook login requirements, but I don't do much on my Facebook anyway, so hopefully it won't be as big an issue as I worry about. Hopefully.

With that said, I am super excited to get my hands on it, which should be in about 2 weeks, a nice, late birthday present to myself. 

Speaking of VR, Sydney is getting better and better at playing, which is mostly Beat Saber and the song, Thunder by Imagine Dragons, which she plays over and over and over, but it is so cute to see her immersed in the world and chopping block after block. I also got her into this big coloring book app, which immerses you into the pages of a coloring book and lets you paint your surroundings. I want to check and see if there's any other good, kid friendly apps I can have her toy around with since she's definitely interested.

In other news... we are 1 day away from October, which means Halloween! Last weekend Jen and the kids went camping, and so while home alone I decided to decorate the house for Halloween... did a pretty good job too, and now I'm definitely feeling in the mood. I have been playing (in VR as well) the Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners, and also re-watching the whole Walking Dead series, so I am getting in the spirit, indeed. Am also planning on picking out some good Halloween/Horror movies, and re-checking my Halloween movie list, will have to update some Family Halloween movies so we can have some spooky movie nights through the month!

That's a good summary of things, I could go deeper, I could go shallower... but I'll just stick with what I put down and leave things at that... peace out ya'll!

Fuck Facebook...

 Ok, after my last post about Facebook and my desire to boycott their products of the future, they have just made my decision very hard.

So, the new 'Facebook' Connect conference is in 2 days, and apparently the big reveal was just leaked this morning... it is indeed the Quest 2, but the features and specs and (potential) price is far more optimistic than most people thought would be coming. 

At it's heart, it will still be a Quest... a wireless, stand-alone VR unit, but the feature set has it coming in at 50% higher clarity lenses (close to 2k per eye) as well as a 2GB boost in RAM, going from 4 GB to 6 GB, along with a Snapdragon XR2 processor, which apparently doubles or triples speeds all around, plus it is supposed to be up to 20% lighter, features new straps, new controllers (albeit similar to the current controller) and will offer a 256GB version... although it is white, or grey or something, which is kinda, eh... but the biggest thing would be the price... 

Now this wasn't part of the official leak, so not sure if it's legit or not, but a couple leaks from Walmart.com and Target.com price the two versions at $299 and $399, which is $100 less than the current version (which is being delisted at more and more stores everyday.) So if this is true, it not only gives us a generational leap in terms of specs and experience, but it gives us the absolute cheapest full fledge VR on the market. period. 

If that price is true, Facebook is going to be taking HUGE loses on each unit, but I don't think that matters much to The Zuck, which would make me lean towards this being true. It will be easier for Facebook to make money off of your data if they have an easier way to invade your privacy and get your data in the first place. Which, unfortunately, is the scary truth about what they are doing and why the ToS are being updated and Facebook is taking more control over the brand.

What's even scarier than that? The fact that someone like myself, who realizes this and despises Facebook...may not be able to resist the temptation. Everything in my mind is screaming, "Fuck Facebook!" but I am such a fan of VR, and even focus on VR a lot for my podcast, so just dismissing it is absolutely tough to do... with the specs mentioned, I would have probably still been having a difficult decision if the units were coming in at $599 and $699, but if those prices are true, it's going to be hard to NOT get one... truly.