Top 5: Worst Casting Decisions

5. Shia Labeouf as Harrison Ford's son in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull -
Let's first examine the possibility of Indiana Jones actually having a kid.

By now you should have the opening scene of Raiders memorized.  If you don't, go watch it and come back.  I'll wait.

This scene proves without a doubt that Indy couldn't possibly have a child that he didn't know about; He never goes anywhere without a hat, and he always gets out in time.

4. Marlon Wayans as Snails in Dungeons & Dragons -

If I had ten readers, nine of them would think I was joking around right now, but rest assured I'm being serious. In 2000, there was a Dungeons & Dragons movie made, and playing the part of the sidekick was none other than Marlon Wayans, star of 75% of the shows on the WB for the first 3 years it was a network.

Two words for Petr Brodsky and the rest of the four member casting team:
Target Demographic

It took four of you to cast that piece of crap? Really? Really!?!

You could have dressed up a bunch of six year olds and it would have been more amusing. I think The Little Rascals proved that. You know what? Never mind. I give up. Next.

3.  Keanu Reeves(In any role other than Ted Theodore Logan) -
Look, I get it. You really liked the Matrix. You know what? I did too, but I'd argue that it'd be just as solid of a movie if the part was played by someone else.

Johnny Mnemonic is the only film I've ever walked out on. What's worse is that I was 18 at the time, when that seven bucks I'd just spent actually meant something to me.

I'm not even going to argue with you on this one. Roll the clip that pushed me over the edge:

2. Shia Labeouf as Sean Connery's grandson in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull -

A lot of people forget that in his portrayal of Mutt, Shia was not only playing Indy's son, but also Sir Connery's grandson. Look, Shia seems like a cool kid. I'll give you that. He hangs out with Optimus Prime on a regular basis, and even made out with Megan Fox. On the cool scale, that's up there. Way up there. But you're asking an Olympic pole vaulter to jump over the Empire State building here.

The only person bad ass enough to play this part was Jesus Christ himself, but I heard the producers couldn't get him to come out of retirement for a second time.

1. Jennifer Connelly as Janine in He's Just Not That In To You -
Jennifer Connelly is a fantastic actress, but for this year's "He's Just Not That in to You", the brilliant team of Baddeley and Davis decide to cast her in the part of Janine. In the movie, and I hope I'm not spoiling this for you, Janine is cheated on by her husband.

I've watched Dinosaurs come to life and a little alien named Yoda get in to a light saber fight with a real person. I've sat through flying cars and skeleton pirate attacks. I even bought it when Matt Damon played a genius, but if you expect me to believe that any man could cheat on Jennifer Connelly, a Jennifer Connelly who spent half the movie in pig tails no less, then you're about 40 IQ points below Forrest Gump.

If the stork delivered you from the factory between the years 1969 and 1982 with the "Daddy Parts" option selected, then an absolute, unfaltering adoration of Jennifer was installed by default. It's impossible for this movie to have taken place.

"But maybe she was all they could get?" Some not-as-astute-as-they-think-they-are readers are currently thinking.

You don't even have to look outside of the cast list to see where they went wrong. The correct answer should stand out to you like Shaquille O'Neal at a white midget convention.

Drew Barrymore
Jennifer Connelly
Scarlett Johansson
Jennifer Aniston
Ginnifer Goodwin

Out of this list, not one of these names stands out as the perfect person to play a girl who gets cheated on by her husband and left for a younger, more sexual woman? Huh.

Nerd Word(s): The Project

The Project
- noun

1. Something that a nerd is currently devoting most of his time, energy, or thoughts to. Normally this involves building, wiring, constructing, programming, or a combination of many different nerd schools of expertise.
2. The single most attention consuming thought for any true nerd.

[ Origin: Since the dawn of time, nerds have worked on "The Project" ]

- usage
1. "Dude, we're all getting together to watch the Sun's game tonight. You in?"
"Nah, I think I'm just going to stay home and work on The Project"

- see also
60%

- examples
1. The Flying Machine - The Wright Brothers(And others)
2. How To Build a Chair - Me
3. Cale's Bedroom - A project by Sean

Totally Totally Nerd Party 2009

I normally wait till after the party to write a story about how I said something stupid to some girl I don't know, but since this party was sort of The Project for the week, I thought I should advertise a little. If I've neglected to invite someone, let me know and I'll fix that. Also, if you'd like to apply to be the girl I say something stupid to, send an email to: Sesquipedalis@gmail.com.  

All of your favorite Sesquipedalis stars will be there, including Sean, Liang, J.R., and even Flip Cup.  I for one will be hiding in the corner and making awkward conversation.

Sean recently purchased a new house mini-mansion, and to celebrate decided he'd add a little something extra to his annual St. Patty's day party. This year he wanted to get some oversized boxing gloves.

I upped the ante and suggested he rent an inflatable ring as well.

Naturally, we soon found ourselves at a trophy store picking up a trophy that reads, "Drunken Cartoon Boxing Champ 2009"

The plan was set: Boxing in the backyard, Sun's game downstairs, and Rock Band in the upstairs loft.

But with all of the hubub over the boxing I felt it necessary to up the ante on the Rock Band as well. Following the instructions found here, I wired two stage kits together for a super nerdy Rock Band experience.

Do It For Harley

"So I have this friend, named Stephanie, and she's super cute. You should meet her sometime," Mary's IM began abruptly.

"Uh huh..."

It wasn't that I wasn't interested. Far from it. It was more the fact that Mary's a bit crazy, and doesn't even know me that well. Not really. Besides, if this blog has shown us anything it's that first time meetings aren't really my thing.

Mary isn't actually crazy. She's well within the acceptable range of crazy for anyone born a female. She's just a bit of an overachiever and trends towards the higher side of that scale.

We met over a year ago when Geremy brought her to Rock Band night at a local bar. Mine and Erik's band Metallic Brainstem were set to do a two song set list, and she filled in on bass.

Geremy had met Mary in class, and I believe was attempting to set the two of us up. Mary's a lovely girl, but the meeting was a bit like remedial science class at the local high school: Not a lot of chemistry. The feeling was mutual, and while the real life relationship floundered a little, we transitioned nicely to online buddies. We took to IMing one another on the slow days at work.

On this particular day, either work was extremely slow, or Mary was just over eager.

"Well, she's a bit young" she continued, "Twenty to be exact, but she turns 21 in September"

Strike one. Are we really counting months? Is this some sort of set up? Chris Hansen, is that you? No I will not have a seat over there.

"I met her in the Miss Arizona pageant. She competed with me"

A beauty queen? Me? Really Mary? Strike two. Why don't I just pick her up on my flying Pegasus and spend the evening slaying dragons and dancing with the faeries? I mean, if we're living in fantasy land why not jazz it up a tad?

"A twenty year old beauty queen? Have you read my blog at all Mary? Even a little? I feel like you haven't been paying attention" I began to protest.

"There's a pageant coming up. You should go cheer her on."

"Yeah, I don't know if..."

"She does ventriloquy for her talent" Mary continued, undaunted.

"I'm in."

Last Saturday I found myself outside of a large auditorium wondering what I'd gotten in to. Apparently jeans and a white T-shirt aren't appropriate attire for a beauty pageant, so I made an attempt at dressing nicely. I felt a bit like a kid who's mom had dressed him in a tie for the first day of Sunday school, but I put on a brave face as we entered.

The competition was surprisingly not bad. Sure, there were a few off moments. Some of the answers during the Q&A portion were a bit less than fantastic(Not quite The Iraqs, but still amusing). A few of the "talents" were a little more Sanjaya than they were Kelly, but as a whole it was entertaining.

And then came Stephanie. The tiny girl walked out on stage in her flowing white dress, and Dream Weaver started playing. After a brief, and entertaining introduction she pulled out her dummy "Harley" and went in to her act. It was actually funny. For the first time in the evening I was laughing, and it was an acceptable time for me to be laughing. It was fantastic.

It was at this exact moment that I leaned over to Mary and whispered, "I think I'm in love"

"I told you"

After the pageant was over, Mary, her friend Kevin, Stephanie and her friend Quinn and I all went to Applebee's. The three cute girl to two nerd guy ratio completely threw me off so I spent the entire night hiding in the corner.

As is often the case when women congregate, the topic of boys came up, and from my corner I heard Stephanie say, "I really like an assertive guy"

Strike three. And I'm out.


Since Stephanie was gracious enough to let me use her picture for this blog entry I'm going to go ahead and post a link to her Miss America donation page. You don't have to kick in on my account. Do it for Stephanie. Do it for the tax break. Do it for the kids. Most importantly, do it for Harley.

Dad steps up to the plateMom knocks it out the park

My dad is a Harley riding, tequila drinking man's man who was in the Air Force for 20 years as an F-15 simulator bad ass.  He grew up on a farm, and mostly spent his time stirring up trouble.  My mother on the other hand is an ex-principal who works for community services, and was raised in a very strict baptist family.  She was a stay at home mother for a few years, and the main caregiver for the family.

Now that I write it out this way, it makes complete sense that my dad is the one constantly reminding us to watch our language, behave, and drive carefully.  When I say "us" I generally mean, "my mother."  It's not that she curses like a sailor or gets out of hand.  It's just that when it comes to a game of "How far are we going to take this joke?", my mother is the champion.  The undisputed champion.

While everyone in my family loves to push the limits without crossing the line, my mother is the proud owner of property far far on the other side.


About 2 years ago my dad, brother and I were going to Quizno's for dinner.

"Just use this door over here" my brother said, pointing to a closer, easy to miss side door.

"Oh.  Back door huh?" I quipped, quoting the great Han Solo from Return of the Jedi.

"Back in my day we called that the old dirt road" dad added without missing a beat as he walked up to the door, now by himself.

My brother and I had stopped dead in our tracks.  While my dad is very quick witted and amusing, he never ever makes jokes that are dirty, or sexual in nature. It was something I'd never seen from him, and something I haven't seen again since.

I've never been more proud in my life.


Back in June of 2008, I had been dating Roseann for about 2 months.  Despite the initial hiking trip, things were going well and we had progressed to a point where I was ready to introduce my family to her.  More importantly I was ready to introduce her to them.  My family tends to get a bit silly when everyone is together, but I figured she'd have to face them eventually if things were to work out.

The typical meet the parents jitters were in full effect for Roseann and she spent the majority of the time quietly listening, and answering the onslaught of my family's questions.

Nobody seemed to care too much, except for my mom.  She pulled me aside midway through dinner and asked if she had embarassed me in any way.  I reassured her that everything was fine.

I write a public blog about every stupid thing I've ever said to a woman. What could possibly embarrass me?

At this point some friends came in and surprised us.  They had come through the side door.

"Oh, the old dirt road?" Miranda said, barely able to get her joke out through her own laughter.

Roseann looked confused, and I quickly launched in to the story of "The Old Dirt Road".  My dad was out of earshot, but mom, now 2-3 glasses of wine in to the night followed along intently.  As I hit the punch line and everyone began laughing, a wistful look of rememberence washed over mom's face.  She leaned back in her chair, lifted up her glass of wine, as if toasting to a higher power and said, "Oh... the back seat of that old '57 Ford"

The Liang Prank

Back in October, my coworker Liang was sent to Romania for a one month assignment. For him it was an opportunity to check out Europe and try out a new work place. For Sean it was the opportunity to pull the prank of a lifetime. We quickly assembled a team of super nerds from around the office and began plotting.

The "Plan" as viewed on Liang's new Newton.

Liang is the very proud owner of a three monitor set up. As I noted in The Developer Trap, monitors are at a premium around the office, and Liang loves to point out that he has three. We began by taking all of the technology out of his office and filling it with old and antiquated equipment. Whenever possible, something made by Apple was used since Liang has a bigger man-crush on Steve Jobs than I do on Steve Nash.

Liang also owns a large stuffed rabbit that sits in his office. We once considered an intervention, or at least investigation, but eventually decided that it's better to just not ask questions.

For my part of the prank, we stole the bunny and hid it in a ceiling tile. I then made several ransom note style newspaper cutout messages to lead him on a scavenger hunt from one point to the next. A cardboard X was taped to his window, and at 3 PM, the X would cast a shadow on the floor of where he should search.

Liang hates having the windows in his office open. You'd think having an office in one of the few Phoenecian sky scrapers would be incentive enough to look outside, but Liang stays true to his nerd roots and avoids the sunlight like the nosferatu.

We were going to steal and hide the blinds, but eventually decided that leaving them open with a surprise waiting would be a better decision. We printed out a large photo of us holding the bunny, cut it in to tiny strips, and placed it on his blinds so that when they were opened the picture wouldn't be noticed. When the blinds were then closed, the picture would reveal itself.

Sean wanted Liang to take it in the face like a boxer who doesn't know how to block, so we took a large, battery operated nerf gun and rigged it to go off when the door was opened. This would also trigger an 80's style tape deck which would then beging playing this song.

A bungee cord was then secured to the door to make sure he wouldn't immediately shut it to block the oncoming nerf barrage.

The final part of the plan was packing peanuts.

Lots and lots of packing peanuts.

It took two full nights after work to set up the joke. A webcam was placed inside of Liang's office, and on the morning of his return from his long trip it was set to broadcast to the our 50+ coworkers who were all "in" on the joke.

As he turned the handle and the door flew out of his hand I could hear a loud obsenity shouted from the general direction of his office. He immediately jumped back and out of range. Like a newborn baby, he stood for a few moments, his brain not fully registering what his eyes were seeing.

After inspecting and cleaning for a few hours, he finally had a path made to his desk.

"At least I can finally get some work done, maybe answer some emails" he told me as we returned from lunch.

It was at this point that he shut his blinds.

As I walked back towards my office I heard an exasperated nerd sigh, "You got the bunny too?"

A few notes:

• The webcam feed was saved, but unfortunately the sound was not. You can view it here, although there's not much to see.
• The packing peanuts were a bit of an optical illusion. The illusion can be seen here. Still, it was about 100 dollars worth of packing peanuts. Were you fooled? He certainly was.
• You can see the full set of pictures on my flickr account here.
• Next to Steve Nash, Sean is my vote for Canadian of the year. Make sure you let him know if you enjoyed the prank.
  

Re-Shaq-ulous

You'll have to excuse the slightly self serving nature of this post. I'd like to have something better put together, but today has been go-go-go nonstop, and yet I feel the need to say something.

I've re-written this post about three times now, but how do you follow something like Shaq? When I sent the story to Basketbawful and True Hoop this morning, I thought maybe I'd get a few extra hits, and maybe someone would enjoy the story. Turns out I did get a few more than my typical 30-70 hits:



I wanted to take a minute to thank everyone for the emails, nice comments, and "tweets". I hope to spend some time this weekend responding to everyone I can, but no promises. Despite my tongue-in-cheek bitching, I figure maybe I'll give this thing a shot. Feel free to follow me and tell me I'm a dork:
http://twitter.com/jessebearden

And please tell Sean he has a big head:
http://twitter.com/cannuk

My email is on the right(As is my twitter now), so feel free to say hi.

Goodnight to the nerd-o-sphere, and congrats to Shaq and the Suns on the win. The Big Diesel's line for the night?

22 points, 9 boards, 36,986 hits.