SAN JOSE, Calif. — At a recent Parkside Hall tech conference, several VR industry leaders announced that all hotly anticipated VR developments will occur eventually, just not within your short and miserable lifetime.

“Our current roadmap puts full-scale augmented reality experiences at about, say, half a decade after your death and the deaths of your friends,” announced Windows Mixed Reality presenter Rowan Frank. “If we hit those targets and wind up ahead of schedule, it’ll come out around the time you’re too feeble and weak-kneed to make use of it anyway, so it’s really not even worth stressing over.”

“See that kid over there?” Valve CEO and Valve Index development head Gabe Newell asked the audience during a later presentation, gesturing to a child in front-row seating. “About seven years old, parents with twice your income, wiping a booger on his lollipop? That kid’s going to be jacked in full-immersion, slaughtering Russian super-soldiers in Call Of Duty 2K71, while you’re in a vase on someone’s mantelpiece.”

“If I were you, I’d get used to strapping your phone to a View-Master and playing goddamn Fruit Ninja at the bus stop, because that’s the closest you’ll ever get to living in the future.”

Several industry experts were able to back up this development timeline, and reacted to the news with youthful enthusiasm.

“I met with the guys at Oculus this morning,” said tech expert and LinusTechTips host Linus Sebastian at press time, “and they jacked me into a full-scale cyber-orgy with flawless haptic feedback that they’ve been working on, some real Ready Player One business. You should have seen the pixels. I’m so glad I have the spritely youth and sponsorship income to experience it when it comes out in thirty-some years.”

Sebastian also explained that any VR tech that arrives in your lifetime would still be behind an economic barrier you could never hope to overcome.

“You already can’t afford VR,” he explained. “Even if you were still alive, what makes you think you could be able to afford it when it’s good? Gonna get a fourth job?”

The tech conference concluded with the introduction of several dozen affluent, able-bodied young people, playing a VR game that involved throwing rotten fruit at a JPEG of a man in his thirties.

Check out the newest episode of the Hard Drive podcast where we watch and discuss every episode of 1989’s The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!

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Look, I'll admit it: I never finished Fallout 4. Before you get all uppity about that, and gather to organise my lynching, know that I did finish Fallout 3. Twice, in fact. Know also that I really tried to finish Fallout 4 (sort of). And be aware that it wasn’t my fault that I didn’t. After all, how could I when there was still so much work to be done rebuilding Sanctuary Hills?

Sure, the awkward, towering conglomerate of wood and corrugated metal I constructed was nowhere near as cosy as the House of Tomorrow which once stood on the same location - the building that served as my pre-apocalypse domicile - but it was the closest thing I had to a home.

Don’t get me wrong: I was relatively concerned about the wellbeing of my kidnapped son, Shaun. And was absolutely kind of mourning Nora, the now murdered spouse I had spent five minutes of wedded bliss with during the game's preamble. But I had bigger questions to answer. Questions like: 'what if I could electrify my base and then decorate it with Christmas tree lights?'

When Elon Musk asked me to point a gun at his new Cybertruck I thought he just wanted to demonstrate that the glass was bulletproof. Musk wasn’t too pleased when that metal ball broke them so I figured he was just doubling down. But as soon as I raised the gun he shouted, “Activate urban pacification mode!” and the damned thing sprouted these crazy sci-fi machine gun arms!

The car instructed me to drop the gun and told me I had 20 seconds to comply so, naturally, I complied. I put the gun down and put my hands in the air and guess what? It’s still telling me I have 20 seconds to drop my fucking gun!

Jesus Christ, I’m just an administrative assistant. I don’t want to die here! Why the fuck does a hybrid sports utility vehicle even NEED an urban pacification mode?! I’ve tried to tell this fucking thing I’m unarmed in English, Spanish, and Klingon but it still deems me as a threat. Fuck, this is like, a serious thing, isn’t it?

OK a bunch of people in white lab coats are rushing to the control panel, is that bad? They look scared. Oh fuck this is bad, isn’t it?

Jesus Christ, it’s voice is so scary! Why would they make it sound like that? Who is that for? They could have made it sound like literally anyone! If I was hearing the voice of Jeff Goldblum telling me I had 15 seconds to comply I would be way less freaked out. Hey, future truck, you’re pointing a machine gun arm at me- I’m already intimidated!

“Ten seconds.” OK, not great. Everyone seems to be pushing a lot of buttons very fast, but I don’t think that’s doing a lot. OK now some of the machines are smoking and shooting sparks, is that good? Nope. If anything they seem more concerned now.

“Five seconds.” Fuck! That print out thingy with the little needle that goes up and down is going fucking crazy! Should I run? I’m gonna run!

*EDITOR’S NOTE: Although Peter was shot roughly 200 times by Cybertruck, researchers at SpaceX managed to save his brain. The brain will be placed into a cybernetic body so that Elon Musk and Grimes can make sex with it.

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