The homeless people around here all have their own distinct personalities. Almost like comic book characters. We have names for all of them based on how they dress or act. Today, in the first of the series, I’ll be describing The Pharaoh to the best of my ability.

He is a wise and mysterious man, who has been wronged time and time again, and is suspicious of everyone except himself. He finds comfort in the fact that one day he shall return to his royal palace, destined forever to be the ruler he once was…

Discover the truth about him after the break…

The Pharaoh is a man who occupies the exact same corner every day. We call him such because he wears a small black Egyptian Nemes (you know, one of those headdress things the Pharaohs wore), and he’s pretty tan. This is a man who has no care for common courtesy. He will go into the street where cars are stopped and individually ask each car for change, almost as if he’s asking his peasantry for offers.

If you’re unfortunate enough to be driving on that particular corner and he comes up to your car, you’d probably expect to hear the booming voice of Ra or Horace. But instead you hear what sounds like the voice of a sophisticated old woman who should be asking you if you want crumpets with your tea, not for spare change.

If someone gives him said change, a simple thank you does not suffice. Instead, with a shake of his fist which is most likely holding an invisible scepter, he tells them that he will pay them back when the government gives him the money he’s due.

The real question for me, is what is this government money for? Was he a black ops spy sent in to some foreign country, behind enemy lines, to assassinate a leader that got caught? Is he in a situation where his government has denounced him, and now all he can do is ask every single damn car that pulls into In ‘N Out for change?

He’ll never be able to make enough to continue on his trail of revenge this way… Or maybe he truly is an Egyptian Pharaoh who got lost on a pilgrimage, and is simply demanding his rightful royal earnings. Either way, he is a worthy addition to the LA.ME HOMELESS HALL OF FAME.

Next time, I’ll be presenting The Wiseman. An ominous observer silently watching over the citizens and their every move…

Lamecast Episode 001: It Begins
Austin and Matt use their podcast powers for good while discussing such thrilling topics as Safari 4, The Big Dog, Xbox Live Arcade, Movie reboots, Dollhouse and so much more.

This is the first official episode of the Lamecast; and it’s brimming with sarcasm, wit, laughs, and sexuality. And best yet, Austin has a new microphone! Even though he claims he hates his voice, let’s not tell him that we secretly hate his voice too. Enjoy!

Download: M4A
Download: MP3
Download: iTunes

Show Notes after the break.

Here are links to everything we mentioned in the show. E-mail any questions & comments to: podcast@wearela.me.

Safari 4
The Big Dog
Hulu removed from Boxee
The Pirate Bay Comic
James Cameron’s Avatar
Monty Python YouTube/Amazon Sales boost
Watchmen
Fulltime Casual crew
The Green Hornet
Clue Reboot
Total Recall Reboot
Neverending Story Reboot
Oldboy Remake
Dollhouse
Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and Damned
Quake Live
Lost Planet 2
Street Fighter IV
Resident Evil 5
Killzone 2
PSP 2 Rumors
Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars
Virtual On for Xbox Live Arcade
Other SEGA Titles Rumored for XBLA
Phantasy Star Online

In case you readers don’t know, I am tremendous fan of Trent Reznor and his main “band”, Nine Inch Nails. His most recent (and possibly final) large arena tour was his biggest yet. Trent has always been on the bleeding edge of technology and incorporating said tech into his live shows. The Lights in the Sky tour was no different.

Trent had planned on filming the last few stops on this tour in 3D and doing a theatrical run, but in what seems to be a typical chain of events, record companies let him down and ruined the opportunity. Instead of professional filming, Trent instituted an “all cameras allowed” policy, regardless of the venue’s preference. Following this announcement, many HD cameras were brought into the audience and were subsequently used to film several shows. What followed was something incredibly unique, a gift from the band that was totally unexpected…

In early January 2009, Trent & company released nearly 400GB of HD footage from three separate shows in the form of three torrents. This was completely raw, unedited, untouched & uncompressed HD video from consumer and prosumer grade HD cameras. Trent felt bad for the falling through of his filming plans, so decided to deliver the next best thing: complete artistic freedom. Fans were encouraged to edit the shows themselves, and do with the footage what they liked.

Most recently, a professional video editor named Colin Cooper released several edits on his Vimeo page. Many users (including myself) requested full versions of the show he edited. And as of this week, Colin has definitely delivered.

Colin has made the entire Victoria show available in three different formats:

• Small - MPEG4, Sub-HD quality at 2.3GB
• Medium - M4V 720p HD quality at 4.7GB
• Large - Apple HDV 1080i HD quality at 25.5GB

Unbelievable! The ability to download this show in multiple HD formats is absolutely fantastic. Having attended the tour ourselves, Austin and I can attest first hand to how amazing it truly was. As of last night I’ve downloaded and already begun watching the 720p version, and I can tell you it is an incredible thing to have for any NIN fan. And even better; I’ve started downloading the uncompressed 25GB version, but I suspect that’ll be going for quite a while.

The one and only negative part is that Trent’s vocal chords are nearly shot in this show, since it’s on the end of the tour. But this shouldn’t stop you from downloading and enjoying this totally legal HD video. Opportunities like this don’t come very often, and Trent Reznor is one of the few visionaries that truly understand how things “work” in the tech world. He’s a pioneer, and his work (as well as Colin’s in this case) is well worth the bandwidth.

We can only hope Colin decides to edit together the other two shows that were included in this amazing 400GB gift from Nine Inch Nails.

When the iPhone was announced in January of 2007, and subsequently launched in June of that year, many users (including myself) were expecting an iChat-like application that would let us instant message and harass our friends over services like AIM, GTalk, ICQ and more. When it was clear that Apple had no damn intention of including anything of the sort, consumers were a bit let down. Even us l337 jailbreakers sought solace in apps like ApolloIM, but were never fully satisfied.

After many firmware updates throughout the course of 2007 and 2008, there was still no clear sign of any decent instant messaging application. Even when the iPhone 3G & iPhone OS 2.0 was announced, with full ability for new applications, an official option for chatting with friends just didn’t exist.

Many developers rose to the challenge once OS2.0 launched, including AOL themselves. Most applications just didn’t work the way users wanted (a nice way of saying they sucked). In my experience, many of the IM apps wouldn’t connect over Edge or 3G, and at times had difficulty connecting even over WiFi.

And then, realizing the error in Apple’s ways, one company sought to make the most complete, full featured, and easy to use IM application for iPhone to date. And in my opinion, they’ve almost completely succeeded. BeejiveIM was created in San Francisco by the aptly named Beejive development company. Having worked on BeejiveIM versions for Blackberry and Windows Mobile phones before, Beejive had some experience in making IM work on mobile devices.

Available for $15.99 from the iTunes App Store, this native and highly customizable iPhone app supports AIM/MobileMe/MSN/Yahoo/MySpace/GoogleTalk/ICQ & Jabber, allowing users to access all of their IM clients from one user friendly interface.

BeejiveIM provides full access to all of these services over Edge, 3G & Wifi, and it definitely works. I was able to connect in any area I tried, including areas that only provided 1-2 bars of service.

Not being happy enough with a fantastic fully-functioning IM application, BeejiveIM flawlessly integrates many kinds of on-the-fly file transfers and personalization options, not to mention faux-”push” support.

Sending photos to your friends is easy, and you can attach a photo from your library, or take a picture directly from the camera. This is the same for voice notes.Press the audio icon, and you can record and send an audio file to your friends directly through the IM window.

Personalization is also a key factor in BeejiveIM’s success. Contact names are linked to your address book, but you also have the ability to easily rename contacts. You can even customize your chat skins and add many different emoticons.

And best of all, BeejiveIM has a unique ability to work around the iPhone’s lack of push capabilities. Once you leave the application to answer the phone, check your e-mail, or play a game, Beejive stays logged into their servers for an amount of time you specify so messages can still get to you when Beejive is opened back up. Beejive can also send you an e-mail while it’s closed so you’ll be instantly notified of an IM. Beejive even has the ability to e-mail your chat logs, so you won’t miss any important conversations once you get home.

Overall, out of all the instant messaging applications I’ve used for iPhone, BeejiveIM takes the cake. It stands out from the crowd for several reasons, and it’s just like chatting on your desktop; full-featured chatting experience away from home. I can’t really think of anything else I’d like to see in an app like this, it’s fulfilled all my IM needs. Until we get video support that is…

Lame Review: 5/5

BeejiveIM 2.0 for the iPhone & iPod Touch is available in the iTunes App Store for $15.99.
www.beejive.com

My friend Shawn is YourDaftPunk in the screenshot up there. How the fuck did he beat my Geometry Wars 2 score? Jesus Christ I can’t stop playing until I’ve beaten him. Which means I’ll never leave my apartment. This stupid game has a vice grip on my tiny balls. <— matt added this and he is a stupid head sexy bastard.

Here’s his stupid twitter post.

Welcome to the newly launched home of the lamest, funniest, sexiest, smartest, boldest, most outspoken, correct, fit, desirable, eligible, venerable, respectable, nude, talented, skilled, and best dressed men on the planet.

We are lame. Plain and simple. No better way to put it. But we’re also funny. And all the things we listed above. We’ll be using this site to try and deliver some genuinely funny, geeky, and enjoyable content for you to consume. You can expect a wide array of content including (but not limited to) random nerd speak, gushing about things like LOST & Battlestar Galactica, high scores, fanboyisms, game/movie/music/application reviews, editorials, letters to the editors (pending an actual fanbase), photoshop fun, regular features, podcasts and a whole lot more.

We can’t promise anything other than a couple of guys who want nothing more than to talk about what they love, and a (not so) secret love for making people laugh. Stick with us, because we’ll be doing this as long as it takes for our lavish & delusional fantasies to actually happen.

That, and you know you loved Cliffy_b.

Thanks for reading & listening, we want love you.
Matthew Rex Downham & Austin Tiberius Brown (WeAreLa.me Founders)

Lamecast Episode 000: The Test
Join Austin & Matt as they take you on an aural adventure like no other. Topics in this episode include Transformers 2, Coraline, Terminator 4, Taken, LOST, Grand Theft Auto IV: Lost And Damned, and more!

This was our first Lamecast, so there are some obvious mistakes throughout. Pay no mind to the screaming cats, soaring airplanes, or performing acoustic guitarists in the background. We are working on perfecting the process and assure you pray to the gods that future Lamecasts will be of the utmost quality.

Download: M4A
Download: MP3
Download: iTunes

Show Notes after the break.

Here are links to everything we mentioned in the show. E-mail any questions & comments to: podcast@wearela.me.

Transformers 2 Trailer
Terminator 4
Coraline in 3D
Taken
Body of Lies
Vantage Point
G.I. Jack
Flower
Sackboy Costumes
The Lost & Damned
The Lost & Damned’s Penis
Gears of War 2 Used Sticker
Watchmen
LOST
Street Fighter IV
Killzone 2
Stoya’s Twitter

Contained within is a story of blood, sweat, tears, and admiration for the most badass game designer of all time.

READ THE STORY