…ask a complete stranger if the movie you just saw was, “like, the worst movie you’ve ever seen.”

It’s particularly good to do, if you think that person’s out with someone they’re romantically involved with, like a girlfriend or a wife. It’s even better if they might have actually *liked* the movie that you all just saw, and figure you’re an ass for having asked about what the beginning of the movie was, ’cause you showed up 10 minutes late and were talking through the last 10. If I’d have had my portable sterilization ray, I’d have zapped them and been done with it. Oh, well.

THe movie in question, incidentally, was “The Lake House,” which I can’t actually recommend without reservations. Those reservations are:

* You have to at least marginally like Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock. If you don’t, you won’t:
* Buy into it.

That second one’s the really big one – you’ve got to completely suspend your desire to ask *why* certain things are happening, at the beginning. It’s like the beginning of Equilibrium, in the scale of “okaaaaaay, whatever.” But for some reason, for the most part, it works. At the start. There are times later in the movie that are definitely “WTF? How could they not (do obvious thing)??!?!?” and in large part, that’s another reason I can’t really recommend it without reservation.

Because for anyone who’s really bothered by that sort of stuff, it’ll drive you absolutely batty. But if you just sort of “let it go,” and not worry about it too much, it’s sort of a weirdly charming little story.

Two other things:

1.) My parents are moving away tomorrow, as you might have read in an earlier post. it’s weird, but I guess I’ve built up to it, and it’s not overly strange. We’re not the kind of family that really made a big deal out of “family time,” on a regular basis, so I figure we’ll see each other less, but probably spend more real “time” together. Which is probably going to be just fine. I hope they find a place they grow to love soon.

2.) I spent some time this afternoon unplugging our desktops, and the various accessories therein. Basically, the two computers are connected to a single monitor and keyboard in the “office,” and when I’d originally hooked ’em up, I did so without rhyme or reason. The cables were a total mess, and it was obvious. So, I unplugged everything, rearranged some stuff, and slowly, methodically hooked it all back together, zip-tying the various cables, separated basically into power cables and everything else. It looks much neater, until you look behind the computers, where there’s a big pile of bundles of cables. Didn’t really know what else to do with them, but they’re safely out of sight.

3.) (yeah, whatever – I’d only thought of two when I started) spent some time cleaning up the downstairs, though my progress was pretty feeble. Now that my parents have dropped off a lot of stuff, it’s actually quite crowded, with four people, a lot of my childhood stuff (and useless crap), and some of my parents’ stuff. It’s just weird. We’re even getting two more chairs tomorrow, because my dad doesn’t like ’em (they’re my grandparents’ chairs) and I love ’em. So, that’s even *more* stuff. Geesh. We’ll find a place for it, I suppose. One thing that’s really weird is that this house is pretty well perfect for four people. It’s big for three. It’s monstrous, for two. It’ll be weird, one day, when it’s just Ei-Nyung and me, and maybe a child. I figure that’ll happen eventually. Weird.

I want to make a game. I’ve had ideas in the past about stuff I’d really like to make, but they’ve all been beyond the scope of what I could do, reasonably. Games that were “too big,” no matter how we’d tried to make sure we’d thought of something small. We’d start small, and it’d grow, and grow, and grow. This concept, though, for the first time, feels *right*. Not that the previous stuff hasn’t been good – it’s been *damn* good, and one day, I’ll see that stuff gets made as well.

But this one – it’s the right idea, at the right time, for the right hardware, and can be done with relatively small overhead by a relatively small number of people. Other times, I’ve had excuses – I didn’t know any programmers. I didn’t know any artists. Whine whine whine. This is a concept that can be done in theory with almost no financial overhead. It can be done with relatively few people. It’s not ridiculous in terms of content generation, asset creation, whatever. If it’s done right, and people are receptive, it would be the game that *absolutely* is *the* defining game for the platform, no question in my mind.

The only question, really, is whether I’ll reach out and grab the opportunity – find people who are also willing to pursue this idea, take the risk, however small, and devote the time to make it happen, or whether I’ll watch as it passes by…