I think people should avoid these for small talk replacement. There was a younger guy at work who led off exactly as you suggested (in fact, I checked your username to see if you were him). It was received so very poorly. People were not ready to have "odd" requests of them. There was no natural flow. If you want to ask questions, they should start in the context of the setting: have you been here before? Lived here long? What's a good way to do $something_related?