Two evenings ago, Hunter and I were playing Super Smash Brothers Melee in our extremely modest digs.

Then we got a call from our fellow grad student Ryan. (This is the Ryan of my Fall 2002 semester project - the project that took us to New Orleans.)

And why was Ryan calling?

"I was wondering if you knew any good 'cinematic' video games."

"Sure...why do you ask?"

"Oh, well, I'm working for Tom Cruise's production company right now, and I'm researching ideas for movies for him to star in."

.....

I shit you not. So, you know, if Tom's in a movie, say, "Pokemon 6: Mission Impossible"?

Well, that's our fault, then. ;)

Just kidding. We gave our friend realistic ideas, and refrained from suggesting silly things like Tom Cruise as Young Link.

We were surprised to hear that Ryan is now working for Tom's production company, because we were both under the impression that he was working for MGM, since we met MGM's Director of Creative Affairs during our trip to California in January.

(She actually gave us a fascinating rundown of everything that goes into producing a movie, from script shopping to casting to advertising.)

Oh, yeah, and we recently found out that our other friend works for Kevin fucking Spacey.

How does this stuff happen??

I thought everyone in Hollywood was just a myth.

---

Moving away from the topic of celebrity, we can talk about last night's festivities.

We went over to the home of our friends , fellow alums, and coworkers Amy and Cort. They work for the SimCompany too. Amy's the one who went to my high school.

Anyway, we were playing a game our friend Ray made up for Game Design class, and we began (again) sort of throwing around the idea of starting a game company. Ray found a place that will print, warehouse, and ship your games for you [we're talking regular games here, not video games.]

There's something really seductive about this idea - a little company as a hobby between a group of friends, selling unique and wacky board and card games to make a little money and a name for themselves. The games my friends have created are quite formidable, and the response I've gotten to my games so far has been quite positive.

How exciting would that be?!?

Of course, I hesitate to start work on such a thing right now, as I believe the NDA-type agreements I had to sign as an intern make ownership sketchy if I do major work on an independent game while on this contract.

Anyway... after playing the home-brewed game, we ended up playing Mario Party 4. There were 6 of us - Hunter, myself, Amy, Cort, Ray, and our friend Dan from Pixar. (Hunter and I teamed up, as did Cort and Amy.)

I haven't had that much fun in a long time.

We had a few drinks by that time, and a few turns into the game, Hunter began to invoke the "taunt" sound for our character, WaLuigi. Everyone else wanted to know how to do it, so he showed them.

And he regretted that move for the rest of the evening.

Dan, who has a very crotchety-old-man cackle when he's truly amused, became infatuated with the taunt. He taunted us no less than 2,500 times with Wario's guttural "Ya-HO!" during the course of the game.

The rest of the game was standard Mario Party, but we were all in pain from laughter by the end.

(For the uninitated, Mario Party is a

GameCube game where you travel along a gameboard and intermittently experience bizarre events and player-versus-player battles. It's heavily Japanese in its absurdity, and it's wonderful for a couple of video game afficionados with a few drinks in 'em.)

Mario Party is horribly silly on the surface, but it's also one of the best party games I've ever played. We've been in love with it ever since the N64.

And there's a new one coming out in Q4!!!

God, I love the GameCube.

We mourn for Ray because he is a videogame developer, like us, but his girlfriend doesn't like games much.

That is going to need to be dealt with. She's totally nice - we just need to wake up her inner child, or something.

But we'll hold off on Settlers of Catan for now... ;)

...

Ya-HO!