That's where we start today's show. I'm Carl Azuz, welcome to CNN 10.

Gasoline at nearly $5 per gallon.

That's what average prices are in northern California's Humboldt County.

Thankfully for Californians, it's not quite that high everywhere.

The average price across the Golden State is $4.68 per gallon.

But that is a record.

California, which has the largest population of any American state, also has the highest gas prices in the country.

A spokesman for the Triple A Automobile Association says even though Californians are used to paying more for gas, this is a leap for them.

Drivers of midsize sedans are paying over $21 more every time they fill their tanks than they paid last year, when demand for gas and the cost of it were far lower.

In addition to that demand, there have been powerful rainstorms in northern California that have reduced the state's ability to refine the fuel.

That's why it's setting record prices there, but not nationwide.

The US national average is $3.41 per gallon.

The increased cost of crude oil, which is the biggest factor in the cost of gas, continues to drive prices up.

And that is happening a week ahead of Thanksgiving, when the most popular form of travel is by car, according to Triple A.

So, especially for drivers in California, it's gonna be a more expensive holiday.

Gas prices are just part of that picture.

We reported a couple of weeks ago how groceries for next week's festivities are expected to be the most expensive ever, ongoing problems with the supply chain, and abnormally high inflation.

The rise in prices of goods and services ⏤ these are two of the big reasons why.

It's having a negative impact on consumer sentiment; the way people feel about the US economy and their own personal finances.

And to give you a sense of how all this is reverberating across the United States: The city with the highest inflation rate is thousands of miles away from the state with the highest gas prices.

It's Atlanta that has the overall highest inflation rate in the country.

The southern city has that inflation rate due to big factors like housing, gas prices, and the cost of groceries as well.

Its inflation rate, 7.9% compared to the national average at 6.2%.

Census data shows that Georgia has become one of the top places to move in recent years.

The demand for housing in the Atlanta metro area is outpacing supply, resulting in higher rents and home prices.

Now, beyond Atlanta, metro areas nationwide are seeing spiking costs for basic items like gas, food, and furniture when compared to last year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Economists have also linked the surging pricing to bottlenecks in the supply chain, the result of a collision between pent-up consumer demand and a lack of resources.

Now, with all the rising costs, whether it be gas prices, groceries, housing, it's no surprise that new data coming out of the University of Michigan shows that consumer sentiment is at a 10-year low.

Nadia Romero, CNN Atlanta,

10-second trivia: Cardboard, Gear, Valve, and Vive are all the names of what?

Smartwatches, VR headsets, EV prototypes, or cryptocurrencies.

These are all virtual reality headsets ranging in price from 20 to 800 dollars.

New digital technology is changing the way people perceive sports that have been strictly analog for centuries.

This is being done with the aid of virtual reality, sights and sounds that are completely computer-generated, and augmented reality, overlays of computer images on actual physical environments.

It's not for everyone.

For one thing, there's something called "cyber sickness", which is like motion sickness.

Experts say that when you perceive movement on a screen or a VR headset, but your body isn't actually moving, the confusion this creates in the brain can make you feel disoriented and sick.

Some health experts are also concerned about the excessive amount of screen time that many people already get.

Do electronic images need to be added even at the gym where many go to unplug in the first place?

For supporters of the new technology, it can add excitement and opportunity for a new type of workout, but a membership at $200 per month at Black Box VR costs several times that of other gyms.

I'm at Ski Tech, an indoor training center for winter sports in Hong Kong, trying out this ski simulator.

Sensors track my motion, software recreates snow conditions, and a panoramic screen transports me to snowy mountains.

Uh, there's no snow in Hong Kong, but thanks to virtual reality, I can hit the slopes and fine-tune my skiing technique, and for some entrepreneurs, virtual and augmented reality is to find the next generation of fitness and sports.

San Francisco's Market Street, home of streetcars and tweets.

And now, a virtual reality gym.

At Black Box VR, opened in 2019, your body transforms into a controller and real-world exercises are flashy attacks in a virtual battleground.

All right, I feel like I'm blowing up some bad guys.

Black Box VR is the world's first resistance-based virtual reality gym.

Now, um, walk me through the Black Box VR experience; you go to a Black Box VR center, you walk into a private booth, you put on the VR headset, and then what happens?

So, you... you go in, like you said, you put the headset on, and you are immersed in this vast, this epic, futuristic sporting arena, and the crowd is cheering for you and chanting for you.

We actually have a d ⏤ what we call a dynamic resistance machine that is mapped to the virtual reality space.

You start to do chest press, shoulder press, back row, all these different compound fitness movements.

And as you're doing those movements, you're actually shooting a fire beam or an ice shard and creating these epic attacks against your opponent.

For Preston Lewis, co-founder of Black Box VR, fitness is all fun and games.

He says that the gamification aspects of the experience are designed to make people addicted to their workouts.

- I feel like I'm holding, like, I don't want to, like, close it too tight 'cause I want to keep it as... - I do it all the time.

Let's talk more about VR, because you've said that virtual reality is a great way to trick people into committing to a fitness routine.

What do you mean by that?

Absolutely, yeah, and most people have a super hard time sticking to their fitness routine.

With virtual reality, it's the exact opposite.

Video games have been created by some of the world's best behavioral psychologists and they just have it down.

They have those perfect little timing, the perfect little dopamine drips of an achievement or a reward.

It's really hard to stop moving once the game gets going.

So the mix of technology, the game itself, everything intertwined, keeping you moving, and it's keeping you from getting distracted from the workout itself.

At Black Box, members work out in their own private room, where there's a resistance machine that pairs with the VR headset.

Lewis says that for users working out in the world of Black Box, 30 minutes feels like 10.

When you're working out in the game, do you feel the passage of time?

You know, and that... that's one of the great things about virtual reality as well, is time dilation.

When you're on a treadmill, you're... you're sitting there, you're... you're kind of walking or you're running and jogging and you look at ⏤ you're like, ok, it's been a half-hour for sure, and then you look at the clock, it's been, like, five seconds, you know?

So, um, it's the opposite with VR.

I'm very tech forward and I think applying virtual reality gamifying workouts, super awesome concept, Ready Player One type of stuff, so, really wanted to try it out.

So, what's your guys' experience with VR and technology?

Black Box is currently only available in gyms across the US, but Lewis says the company is hoping to expand internationally.

For 10 out of 10, we're getting pumped up.

These balloons were recently tested ahead of next week's Thanksgiving Parade in New York City.

Hundreds of volunteers took part to make sure the bags hold air to see how they handle if the wind kicks up.

And it's a testing ground for the handlers themselves, as managing these things does take some technique.

Several new balloons from Ronald McDonald and Baby Yoda to Pikachu are set to be part of the fun.

Well, that ties up another edition of our show; we're "tethered" to that 10-minute limit, really can't "rope in" any more time than that.

And plus, an extra minute of puns would be kind of "ballooney", if you get my "drift".

But before we "float" away, we would like to give some airtime to Ludington High School; it is located in Ludington, Michigan.

Thank you for subscribing and leaving a comment on our YouTube channel.

I'm Carl Azuz, and I'm going "up, up, and away" with CNN.