pretty lame mind powers

I saw the new Miyazaki movie - Ponyo on a Cliff / 崖の上のポニョ - yesterday. It was, as you might expect, extremely adorable and heartwarming! Sigh, awww, too cute.

Thankfully, we have Miyazaki Hayao back working on this one, despite his previous hints at retirement and the last Ghibli film put forth by his son (Tale of Ged / ゲッド戦記 - definitely lacking, IMHO).

Also thankfully, it was extremely easy to understand in Japanese. There's something giddy-exciting about seeing a Ghibli movie debut in its home country...even if that means being surrounded by 5 year olds and their parents and extended families who reserve whole rows of seats such that you and your friends threaten to be separated to far reaches of the theater.

Good movie, but definitely aimed at the under-10-or-rabid-Ghibli-fan set.

So, a strange thing happened to me this morning. I was having a rather adventurous dream about being held hostage and then setting a huge fire to thwart my captives. As the fire in my dreams was blazing, I was woken up in real life by the blaring alarm of my smoke detector. It was signaling fire, but groggy inspection revealed no smoke, flames, or even high heat around my apartment, much less the detector. It persisted even after I tried the disabling switch, and I ended up having to take the batteries out to stop the grating noise.

It seems fine now, but here's hoping I don't dream about The Big One tonight.