Yay. I'm in Irvine.
It's actually not all that bad here—I'd venture as far as to say that it's probably a decent place to live. The streets are clean, the shops are nice, and people seem to drive with some maginal sense of sanity.
But there's also not a lot of life out here, either. I've never seen three lanes freeway-width wide sweeping through big office parks and neighborhoods, and still managed to be so completely dead at night.
Anyway, some photos to soothe the suburbanality: above is a restaraunt called El Cholo; at right is a bizarre ankle-height exit sign in my extended-stay hotel.
The low exit signs are some new code thing in CA, the idea is that if the room/hall is filling with smoke and you're crawling, you might still see it. Yeah.
I suppose it would also be helpful in the event that you're using your personal escape luge.
--D