I just realized that everything android is open source - all apps and the OS itself. Thought I'd play around with it without having to buy an Android device so I fired it up in vbox and walla! it works: How to Run Android in VirtualBox, VMWare
You can download vbox for Windows, Mac or Linux here: Downloads - VirtualBox This allows you to run nearly any other OS within your Host OS. You can see that I'm running Android, ubuntu and Windows 7 from within Linux Mint. Each OS opens in it's own window.