Verne at SXSW in Austin, TX
Hey, everybody! Just a heads up – I’m going to be at the SXSW Festival in Austin, TX from March 17 – 20 supporting one of my favorite charities, The Starkey Hearing Foundation. Starkey improves the lives of people all over the world by conducting research on hearing, and providing equipment, training, and education to those that may be at risk. Hearing is an extremely important part of our lives, and is especially important in the development of children, and I strongly support what the Starkey Foundation is doing.
So, if you find yourself at SXSW, come say hi to me, and some other great people like Lou Ferrigno and Erik Estrada, get some cool prizes, and even get a free hearing exam. See you all there!
GameBox for the iPhone = Awesome for Me
I promise Apple is not paying me for this (although if they would like to give me a free iPad, I wouldn’t turn it down), but my iPhone is one of my all-time favorite gadgets. Mainly that’s due to the fact that I have become an absolute app fiend, and I want to tell you about one I downloaded the other day called GameBox.
Right now GameBox (the full title is ALL-1-GAMEBOX, but I don’t feel like typing that again) is the #1 paid app in the iTunes App Store, and it’s for good reason. The app consist of 25…no, now 26 iPhone games all in a single package, with more free games added regularly. The best part? It’s only $.99. I bought it skeptically thinking that all the games are going to be really cheap and not very fun, but at only a buck, what did I have to lose? However, there are some legitimately good games in there. One of my faves is i-Sniper 3D, which is so far the best sniper game I’ve played on the iPhone (yes, I’ve played many). Another great one is called AC-130 Spectre, which lets you shoot bad dudes with a variety of weapons from a giant warplane in the sky (kind of like that scene form Modern Warfare, if you’ve played it).
So anyways, if you have an iPhone, check it out. My theory is that if there is at least a single game that you like in there, then it is worth the money, and every other game you might like after that just makes the deal that much sweeter.
Lou Diamond Philips and Me at The House of Blues
Hey everybody! Tonight is the biggest night in Hollywood – the Oscars! The whole city has an electric feel to it as we get ready for the ceremony, and there are tons of events happening all over LA.I’m especially excited because the film I was in “The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus” is up for two Oscars, including Best Art Direction, and Best Costumes. Believe me, I saw how hard the cast and crew worked on this film, and it definitely deserves these awards.
Friday night, I was at the House of Blues on Sunset for the iHeartHollywoodProject.com event, where I was hanging out with some great people. The pic above was taken by Jordin Althaus at Life, and is of me chilling with the always awesome Lou Diamond Phillips.
So, what are your Oscar predictions?
Growing up watching Westerns with my dad.
Find more videos like this on Verne Troyer’s Looking Up
Next up from my “Interview On My Couch” series (the name is a work in progress, but you get it), I talk about how I grew up watching those old “Spaghetti Westerns” with my dad. The Good, The Bad, The Ugly, The Outlaw Josey Wales, things like that.
I have some great memories of those times, and as you will see, it was actually one of those films that planted the seeds of wanting to be an actor in my head all those years ago.
What kind of movies did you all watch when you were kids?
This is where we are all headed, everybody. May as well get on board now.
Here’s a prediction: within the next 10 years, physical media will be a thing of the past.
DVD’s? Gone.
Video games on a disc? No more.
Books? Saving trees.
Everything will be in digital format. We will download all of our media and entertainment wirelessly, just like we pretty much all do now with music (CDs? Never heard of ‘em). Therefore, I have decided to get in on the ground floor by buying the new Sony PRS-600 E-reader.
Everyone I talk to about it says, “I just can’t imagine reading off a screen for that long…” But the fact is that this literally looks like you are reading off of a real page, not to mention that most of us nowadays do the majority of our reading off of a computer screen anyways, so our eyes are pretty much used to it. This one does all the cool stuff, like lets you download books wirelessly, such as my childhood favorite, Where the Red Fern Grows (still brings a tear to my eye), supports Adobe files, Microsoft Office docs, MP3s, and tons more. It’s super thin, light, and perfect for travel. But most of all, it’s almost indistinguishable from reading out of a regular book, even when it’s really light in the room, which is super cool.
There are a few different E-readers out there right now, but I really dig this Sony one. Check it out, tell me what you think. Or, if you already have something like this, let me know how you like it in the comments.
See ya!
Best Buddies is up for a $250,000 grant! Let’s help them get it!
Update! Since this morning, we’ve jumped up to #5! Remember, the top two vote-getters get the grant, so let’s keep voting! I added this widget below that allows you to vote from here, so hit it up, homies! If you vote, leave a comment showing your support!
Hey, everybody! It’s Verne, and I need your help one more time.
Best Buddies (bestbuddies.org), the non-profit organization I’ve been working with for the last few years that provides opportunities for those with intellectual and developmental disabilities, is currently in the running to receive a $250,000 grant from Pepsi Refresh Project. This money will go towards the development of leaders for the disability movements in their communities by allowing us to send them to a 4 day conference at Indiana University this July. There, 100 community advocates with disabilities, and 1000 without will receive personalized training on things like leadership development and public speaking, they will be able to use in their own Best Buddy chapters all over the U.S.
You all know how much Best Buddies means to me, and I would really appreciate your support on this one. $250k is going to allow a lot of people receive this training that would otherwise not be able to afford it, in turn helping thousand of other in their communities.
How to help? All you have to do is vote. Go to the Best Buddies page on Pepsi’s Project Refresh site by clicking here, and give us a vote. You can vote once a day, so vote often! Spread the word by connecting to Facebook and telling your family and friends about it. If it didn’t mean so much to me, I wouldn’t be asking you for help, but this is an amazing opportunity for an amazing organization. As of right now, we in 6th place, and the top two vote-getters get the money! Let’s get there!
Help Me Eliminate the R-Word
Hey everybody. I want to tell you about something that’s very important to me, and reach out to my friends and fans for some support.
For the past two years, I’ve been working with a charity organization called Best Buddies (bestbuddies.org). What we do is help people that have intellectual and developmental diseases (IDDs) realize their full potential and help them become productive members of mainstream society by fostering one-on-one friendships, employment, and leadership opportunities. Best Buddies has helped hundreds of thousands of people all across the globe, and I’ve seen personally how their support has changed many lives.
Right now, Best Buddies is supporting a website called R-word.org, which began a movement attempting to eliminate the use of the “R”-word in order to describe those with learning disabilities. This is one of the most demeaning and hurtful words in the English language, and we need to remove it from our vocabulary. If you have a moment, please go to the website R-word.org, and pledge your support. You don’t have to donate money (although you can, of course), just go to the site and leave a comment about your pledge to end the use of that terrible word.
If you do pledge, feel free to leave a comment here and let me know about it. Thanks again for your support.
Back on path to the Superbowl
You all know I’m a big Steelers fan, and It’s never too early to start talking Steeler football, especially when it’s news about one of the best defensive linemen in the game.
Casey Hampton, who by the way is ridiculously large and a 5-time Pro Bowler, signed back up with the Steel Curtain through 2012. This is great news, especially after last year. We definitely need to get back on track.
So, I estimate somewhere between 18-20 wins next season (Superbowl included, of course). What about you?
Heading Home
As they say, “All good things must come to an end,” and so ends my amazing trip to South Africa.
I want to say thanks to all the incredible people I met for showing me such an awesome time, and I can’t wait to get back there again. I snapped this picture above when we took a cable car to the top of mountain. It was one of the most amazing sites I’ve ever seen.
If you are reading this sometime between Wednesday and Thursday, chances are that I’m on a plane somewhere over the Atlantic on my way back home. See ya!
This is the view on the way out of Cape Town. Uh-mazing.
Going From a Stuntman to an Actor
Find more videos like this on Verne Troyer’s Looking Up
Here’s a video we took at my house where I talk about how I became a full-on actor actor doing years of stunt work.
Make sure you check out that MTV Movie Award in the background. It’s the one I got in 2000 for “Best On-Screen Duo” for The Spy Who Shagged Me. I love that one.
Peace out!
