today was my day of hanging out with twiddle thumbs's friends at her work and their respective girlfriends. we went to eat lunch at maki maki at the irvine spectrum. i have never been to that mall before and i can see why. it's an outdoor mall! i hate being in sunshine. after just a few minutes of walking around in direct sunlight, the headache kicked in. not good. anyway, the restaurant was one of those trying to look trendy japanese restaurants serving food made by koreans for white people sort of thing. whatever. we split a spicy tofu/spinach rice bowl and some vegetarian rolls.

then we went to the movie theater there and saw "monster house" in 3-d. they were all excited to see it, especially in 3-d. i wasn't particularly. 3-d never really looks 3-d, you know what i'm saying? at least not the red/blue glasses type. it was only with the new 3-d technology out there that things finally look 3-d. i'm talking about the captain eo ride at disneyland that was the first to make things come to life. plus, captain eo made use of the 3-d by making objects come out at you so that the audience tries to catch things or actually ducks! when you take a film that uses 3-d as an afterthought, then all it is is having a more spacial representation of the moving images. there's nothing exciting about the usage of 3-d in such cases which is what "monster house" and any other movie being presented in 3-d falls into the category of. the only 3-d films that work are the ones designed for 3-d, the kind like captain eo at amusement parks. sadly, these are short. we need full length features designed for 3-d. an entire movie that makes people jump out of their seats, duck, etc! the best thing about "monster house" were the credits when "halloween" by siouxsie and the banshees was played in full. twiddle thumbs was actually dancing in the aisles because it's that damn good of a feeling to hear the banshees on a huge stereo system.

then we went to eat dinner at shinsengumi in fountain valley. they serve cheap dishes served kyushu style, particularly hakata ramen which is from fukuoka city. (yes, i had to look this up.) it's pork-based broth ramen so i was unable to try it. instead, i had fried rice minus the meat and eggs. it was pretty good but it sure could've used vegetables. the menu is not friendly at all to vegetarians and even though it's japanese it would have my mom complain about the lack of vegetables. it's a totally for boys place in that respect. guys usually don't think about their vegetables, they just want animal flesh. due to the cheap prices, make that a college boy restaurant. it is kinda fun to watch your food cooked so close to you if you sit at the counter, but the counters are so high that you have to be tall enough to really see what's going on. not that i'm going to be a short order cook anytime soon but at least the place gives you insight on how to run a kitchen to make noodles for a lot of people all at once or in quick succession.