Living Vicariously: Universal Studios 2012

In 2012, I went to Universal Studios in both May as well as in December. The May trip was a last minute extension of our Disney trip, so when I went back in December, I made it a point to do and see more things. In this video, through the magic of post-production, I've combined both trips into one mostly seamless compilation. You'll see The Simpsons ride, Harry Potter's "Forbidden Journey" ride and surrounding attractions, some interesting scenery, and loads more of things I felt worthy of including into this near half-hour video.

Here is a selection of shots from the trip:

Vicarious Views #16: Advanced Dungeons & Dragons

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Had to dig wayyyyy back in the vault for this one. This is the oldest game I've reviewed for VV yet! Advanced Dungeons & Dragons was way ahead of its time. While I was technically not even alive when this game came out, I did have the privilege of growing up around an Intellivision in the late 80s/early 90s. Of all the games I played, a small selection stood out to me as games I just had to play over and over again; this was one of them. There was something so bold about it. Most of the games I was familiar with at the time were all about puzzle solving or platforming. This one was so...explorable. The game made you pay attention to sounds that other games simply used as background noise. And without music, when a sudden burst of high-frequency sound blared through your television, it would startle you, catching you off guard. I loved that feeling within this game. That, plus the survivalist theme, is why I compared it to later period survivor horror games. There's that urgent sense of danger when you're low on arrows and have to explore uncharted dark areas of the map. It's impressive that they were able to create those feelings this early on in video game history. I wish that the sequel (there is one) followed the same gameplay structure, only giving you a few weapons to use, health to ration and more variety within the maps. Oh, what could have been...

Garlic Tofu & Veggies: An Instructional Video

I must confess: I'm not much of a cook. I do enjoy cooking, but when I was growing up, my mom did most of it around the house. Over the years, I've been getting more and more into cooking either out of necessity (a guy's gotta eat!) or just general interest. So, when I look for recipes to make online, I look out for ones that are mostly straight-forward and require only a handful of ingredients. That's when I came across this little gem.

I like experimenting with tofu due to it being so versatile and healthy to cook with. I'm not a vegetarian, either - a common misconception is that tofu is only for people who don't consume meat. I urge you to give it a try sometime!
Anyway, here are the ingredients for this garlic tofu dish:

    1 tablespoon olive oil

    1 (14 ounce) package firm tofu, drained and cubed

    1 (16 ounce) package frozen broccoli, carrots and cauliflower

    1/4 cup oyster sauce

    6 cloves garlic, crushed or to taste

    1/3 cup chicken broth

You can follow along with my instructions in the video or follow the text:

1. Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add tofu, garlic, and about half of the oyster sauce. Cook until garlic and tofu is browned (it should take several minutes). Remove from the skillet to a bowl, and set aside.
2. Add the frozen vegetables to the same skillet and cook vegetables for 5-7 minutes, substituting chicken broth for the water, and seasoning with the remaining oyster sauce. When vegetables are cooked, mix the tofu garlic mixture back into the pan, and heat through. Serve plain or over rice.

If you can't find immediately oyster sauce, don't worry - I struggled to find it, too. My local Walmart and Targets did not carry it. I had to go to Meijer, which has a vastly superior world foods section than the latter two supermarkets, I find. You could easily find the sauce at an Asian-speciality store, too.

My video does most of the talking, so please watch it to get my impressions and suggestions. I would like to add that when I had the leftovers the following day, I felt it tasted even BETTER than before. The tofu absorbs the garlic flavor, and it makes for a very pleasant second meal.

Thank you for watching! Hope I inspired some people to give this one a try.

The Dreaded Emergency Call Button

The emergency call button: it's a button that nobody hopes to ever have to use. Having a dedicated emergency button sounds like a practical just-in-case feature you would want to have. What kind of gripe could I possibly have with such a thing? 

Not long ago, I was out and about running errands and deciding what type of paper towels I wanted to buy. My choices were between the more cloth-like paper towel type or one of those half tearaway types that are meant to conserve paper. Needless to say, I was deep in thought. During this mental triathlon, I received a text message. "Nobody ever talks to me," I thought to myself. I figured it was just my arch rival, the Horoscope Genie, again. But no! Alas, it was a friend of mine, as indicated by the 4 or 5 redundant texts I received in a row that read, "hey." We start up a conversation as I continue going around town. A text here, a text there — I was in-and-out of my pocket in public more than usual on this day. 

I then received a telephone call. I assumed my friend wanted to continue our conversation in voice. To my surprise, it wasn't my friend, it was THE NINE ONE ONE, and they were coming to get me! I listened to my answering machine message, and they told me to call back to confirm that I didn't fall down a well or get shot. They then mentioned something about an emergency call button. Come to find out, I accidentally pressed it while taking my phone out of my pocket. 

How is it that easy to trigger this alarm? Did I haphazardly dial 9-1-1, and if so, what the chances of that happening? I wasn't exactly capering around in my jeans. What gives?

Allow me to show you in pictorial form just what happened:

Here is my phone. It's peeping out of my jeans.

 Uh oh! Looks like I received a text message.

Lemme just answer that with a...

  ...EMERGENCY CALL PROMPT!?

But here's the thing — you see that little button the lower left? It's the man (or woman - don't send me hate mail) with the little baby dressed up as the statue of liberty. That's the "in case of emergency" button. Translation: it's 9-1-1; do not press this button unless you want 9-1-1 popping up, which is just as easy to press accidentally as anything else. What's worse is that in phones only a few years older than this (Samsung Galaxy SIII), one press of that button sends you off to The Land of Inpromptu Emergency Calls. My previous phone only took one accidental click, and because it had a wonky touch screen to begin with, it was a reoccurring problem.

The lady who left me a message sounded like she was tired as balls of this happening, and I can't honestly blame her with how easy it is to accidentally do it. I'm sure there are some mandatory legal reasons why every phone must have this dreaded button, but why does it have to be so easy to do? We got hit over the head with a mental mallot the size of three football fields with 9-1-1 in grade school, I don't think I'm going to forget the number...

I've since found out that you can replace the emergency call number with any number of your choosing. I hope someone doesn't need my phone one day for a dire emergency, because they're going to get to chat with the good folks at 1-800-WE-ARE-18 instead.

The Brand New WWE Championship - Photoshopped!

All actual belt images used are © 2013 WWE, Inc. and are in no way affiliated with Living Vicariously.

So...for the first time since 2005, we finally have a brand new WWE Championship. The previous belt, the "spinner title", was introduced as a superstar specialty belt by John Cena. It fit him like a glove with all its bling, shortening the word champion to 'champ', the main plate having the ability to spin, and otherwise giving the the WWE Championship a little personalization that fit his character. Unfortunately, the belt replicas and toy titles sold so well that WWE decided to cash in on the spinner belt, and thus, it became the actual championship title. What worked for a rapper-turned-shill didn't exactly work for others, though. They eventually removed the spinning feature and modified the sideplates, but it still looked like John Cena's belt...and having your most prestigious title say 'champ', looking like what was supposed to be an accessory for Flava Flav didn't exactly do anyone any favors. After John Cena's arch rival, CM Punk, had his record-breaking title reign spanning from 2011-2013, the belt didn't seem like it was going anywhere. That is, until The Rock returned, won the WWE Championship and did the honors of introducing a brand NEW WWE CHAMPIONSHIP!

As good as it was to see a new title after so long, it looked a bit...incomplete. The Rock has special Brahma Bull sideplates, but the real version had these really nice looking globes on the side. So, that wasn't the problem. The problem was the big centerpiece. It was a gigantic WWE logo, showing you who won the wrestling wars of the 90s, with the belt's leather backing exposed. It was like they couldn't figure out what to do with it. The Championship was also missing the trademark soaring eagle: the staple championship design that even the spinner belt had. The belt was definitely an improvement, with all its nice and modern angular design, but didn't quite reach its potential. (You can see this championship in the header image above).

Thus, in less than 24 hours, I have taken the public responsibility of enhancing this brand new Signature belt. It needed a few modifications. For one, I wanted to use the actual title with the globe sideplates and not The Rock's custom ones. I felt the red globes were a very nice touch. However, this is the WWE Championship, man! It needs an eagle or two somewhere on it. I modified the WWE title that came before the spinner belt, and used that eagle and placed it on the sideplates. Next, I decided to do something about the center. The leather needed to go, so I axed it and filled it in with a more aesthetically pleasing texture. Next came the wire frame globe -that was the hardest part.

So, without further adieu, here are my Photoshopped designs for the brand new WWE Signature belt!

Here is my very first design. The original belt had the classy looking burgundy globes, and I wanted to continue that design onto the main plate. It gives me that modern-classic feel...though it reminds me a bit too much of Spider-Man!

I feel the color blue is usually synonymous with wrestling titles, and someone suggested that I try a blue variation, so here ti is.

Here is another red globe, this time I got rid of the extra red on the sides so the focus would be on the globe itself.

Here's its blue brother. I think this one is my favorite. The WWE logo going over the wire frame world illustrates what this championship means.

Here's the last one. This is what the previous "JBL title"- as its often called - would look like if it had babies with the spinner belt. I like how this one isn't as distracting as the others, though I do prefer the colors.

There you have it! Which one is your favorite?

Vicarious Views #15: New Super Mario Bros. U

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I had my doubts going in, but I have to say that New Super Mario Bros. U really changed my mind about the series. The first game has aged terribly, and the other ones are just sorta in that "okay" range. They're fun games, but they aren't particularly memorable. This one, I feel, will really stand up on its own. As you could see in the video, I completed the entire game with all the exits found, star coins collected and levels discovered. In contrast, I never cared to do this with any other NSMB game other than the first one on the DS. This one was a lot of fun to play for an hour a day across a few weeks. While I don't particularly care about the challenges, they're there for anyone who wants them, and they are indeed pretty cool. I think I would've gave this game my rare perfect rating (Portal 2 still solely holds that honor) if the music was better. I wasn't exaggerating- they literally took a big chunk of the music from the Wii and 3DS game, and just put it in this game with little or no changes. There are some new tracks, and some of the Wii songs aren't bad, but my God - how lazy is that? Old Mario games have such timeless tunes, and this is what they do? And while I'm harping about the music, let's lose the 'bah's in the background, guys. That sounds like Mario Paint or something. So otherwise, I really recommend this game if you have a Wii U. It's incredibly fun, and the levels and worlds are well-designed. That new squirrel suit took awhile for me to embrace, but now I love using it to glide all over the place. And the secrets! Brings back good memories. In some ways, it's actually a perfect looking side-scrolling Mario game. It's taking what looks like clean rendered character art and using them in-game. I do hope the next entry in the series - which would by pattern be on the 3DS' successor first, which is several years off - tries to advance the series in a more unique direction. Typically the handheld ones are pretty status quo, so maybe the Wii U's successor? Yikes! Sounds far off - and I'm actually excited to see where they take this thing next.

Site Update #3

Holy giraffes, it's the first update of 2013!

The Visuals series of photo galleries is finally launched! The starting line-up is Atmospheric Lighting, WWE Mattel poses/Randy Savage set, Skylines, Chicago Cubs Clubroom, Funny Hats, and a little ditty I like to call Mobile Safari. That one is going to be an on-going series of all kinds of cool/crazy/funny/pretty/tasty stuff I've taken at whim with various mobile phones over the years. I mean think about it, you take your phone everywhere you go, it's pretty much optionless for the most part (at least my old phones were), and sometimes you just want to get a photograph regardless if it looks good or not. That's what this is all about - spontaneous photography without any real rules, secretly taking pictures of weirdos in Walmart. You know the drill. Speaking of which, here's a sample photo from the first set:

 

And since we're talking about the brand new Visuals feature here on Living Vicariously, here's something with less ketchup:

 

You can view all the different galleries over on the Visuals tab. This will be updated every-so-often with new galleries. Follow me on Twitter to get the latest.

Now that Visuals is taken care of, there's one more launch feature I've yet to unveil. It's called Retroactive, and it's coming soon. Additionally, I've been neglecting my editorials. Well, no longer! More are coming very soon as well. It's tough to balance taking time to work on my videos and maintain the site. Positive feedback always helps, though!

Anyway, this was just a update to let you know that the Visuals section has launched and that I survived 2012 and didn't die as I was hoping for at the end of the year. So with that, I bid you farewell.

-DZ