One of the best things about Android using a Webkit browser is that we get to share in the same mobile web improvements as the iPhone. Flickr updated their m.flickr.com site yesterday, making it play really nice with Webkit and other highend mobile browsers (Fennic, Opera). The new interface is smooth, quick, and easy to use. You can access you profile information like your secret upload email addy, leave comments, view photo stats, and even modify your own uploads' titles and descriptions. Video also plays on mobile flickr, but only works for iPhone and iPod Touch, or so they say...

Video playback is currently limited to the Apple iPhone/iPod Touch, but support for more devices will follow as soon as possible.

sure looks like it plays to me...

Flickr is Going More Mobile

I don't have anything against TwitPic (or any other of those mobile photo to twitter apps), but I already use flickr to store my photos. If I use TwitPic, I'll have to re-upload my photo to flickr or just lose out. With all the social networks, your intellectual property can get spread out and lost, so I like to keep flickr as a basecamp for all my photos. However, Flickr doesn't allow me to directly tweet pictures. Though I have streamlined the process of blogging from my phone using email-to-flickr, I wanted a way to tweet my snaps without having to send anything twice, and without using another photo hosting service. And by god I think I found it. Enter Switch-A-Bit. Switch-A-Bit is a switchboard/router/thing-of-magic for your social networking needs. Sign up and connect it to your accounts, and switch-a-bit monitors your activity, routing content back and forth along the channels you set up. Switch-A-Bit lets you set trigger words to activate the channels preventing you from overloading your social networks with a lot of useless data, like what happens with the inadvertent blog spammers on twitter. For example, on my flickr-to-twitter channel, when I'm posting from my phone, I append (#snap) to my post. It uploads to flickr then on to my blog, like normal. Switch-A-Bit catches the "#snap" and posts a tweet with a link to my photo. Switch-A-Bit is as simple to set up as dragging and dropping. In fact, I was a little confused at first that it was working because there wasn't a lot of set up or even options. Links are processed for twitter by a new sister service called bit.ly. As the service progresses (its still in beta), You can be sure to see a bunch more social network added. Right now they offer connections to blogger, facebook, flick, jaiku, tumblr, twitter, and your wordpress blog. Switch-A-Bit

I'm so in love with Scranto. Having him come up this weekend has settled everything in my head; all the fears and worries have shot out the window... John is the guy I've been waiting for. [flashvideo filename=http://buffawhat.com/files/video/animoto/scranto-buffawhat-4th.flv image=/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/buffawhat-scranto-flv-sh.png /] We did so much this weekend, in such a lazy fashion; it felt like the weekend was a whole week:

• Headed to Cathode's for Big Ass Drinks Thursday night, learned that Mama still loves me enough to overpour my (and John's) Margaritas.
• Rednecks in Bradford know how to cook, and two whole halfs of Chiavetta's chicken equals a whole halved chicken.
• My dad smokes ribs better than anyone... still.
• I'm going to look like my Grandpa when I get older.
• Skylar John, and I can miraculously fit on a single (the size) bed.
• I love my bear.

Check out the photoset on Scranto's flickr page to see all we that we did.

John and I spent a good portion of our togetherness last weekend killing hookers, stealing cars and doing odd jobs for this fucked in the head Russian dude. Oh, and we also played GTAIV, the latest installment in the Rockstar platinum franchise. Everything is better: physics, npc interactions, mobility choices; but the Sentinal is still the best car to roll in. That being said, the game is a whole lot darker; morality is put in your hands and it can get frustrating at times choosing who lives and dies, who to bowl with and who to let get beat down.... Did I mention the game is frickin incredible to look at? Liberty City is modeled loosely after NYC, Algonquin being Manhatten, Bohan, the Bronx, and so on... but a few choice landmarks have been dropped in the game, and www.goodostuff.com has the flickr set...

So my story starts 2 years ago, March 2006, when I visit New York City. I take a bunch of photographs, do all the touristy things, fall in love with the city and then come home. Flash forward to April 2008, a little game called GTA4 gets released, some of you might have heard it being talked about. It takes place in a kind of pseudo-NYC called Liberty City. I noticed that there were a lot of great similarities between the real life and the virtual city, so I set about putting together a short little photoset of virtual recreations of the real life photos I took. It was fairly easy, because all the buildings counterparts are basically in the same position, and a lot of care and attention has been paid to getting the details in the game really right.

These are awesome shots; it really shows how much work was put into the game, and how intense the realism can be at times. GTAIV almost has this muddy oil painting style effect added to everything... a beautiful blend of art and realism.

• Sighteeing in Liberty City [matthewj's Photostream]

Unless you catch my twitter, I've been somewhat silent about John on my blog, and partly its because I wasn't thrilled to get the reaction. See, I've spent the last couple of years in Buffalo being the cruelest gaming asshole ever. I've dated a few guys, broken a few too many hearts, and pissed off a whole bunch of people. I've come to the conclusion that I no longer wish to continue this trend; it seems to get in the way of me finding real happiness. To go from player to lover, deceptor to devoted, is as easy as flipping a switch.  However, proving that that switch to people is a lot harder. Thus, the second part of my conclusion is that I no longer care how people will perceive my sincerity on this because I only have to prove myself to one person, and i quite like it this way. I've fallen quite deeply for this redheaded bear named John. John lives in Maryland. I most recently spent President's day weekend with John, and we seemed to have fallen in love. I'm a firm believer that if you care for someone, then you make sacrifices and take chances that you wouldn't normally do for anyone else. The risk of failure is only high when you hesitate, and is most surely 100% when you don't take the risk at all. The mechanicals of our relationship are very intersesting, merging social technology and cross-culture immersion to make up for the physical gap between us.  A uniquely funded travel budget may be in the future, and beyond that is too early to tell. All I can say is this dude completes me in every way I could ever have possibly imagined and to pass this by based on something as stupid as distance would make me a fool. Oh, and he twitters...

[Click above for the Maryland Trip Flickr Set]

 

[Click above to visit the flickr set]

I was Lisa Lampinelli's personal whore

Actually, it was our bouncer James, making out with her, but I was her homo hospitality liason for the evening. See, Lisa Lampinelli perfomed at Shea's Theatre Friday night, and like a good fag hag, she brought her ass (and pals) to Marcella's for her after-party. True to her schtick, she latched on to James, our beloved black bouncer who by then end of the night was shirtless showing his "runaway slave" tattoo to her and getting a little Lampinelli action. I hear he didn't get the "bomb-ass-pussy" but that she would make it back to buffalo and "BOOM!" I think I like Lampinelli more than Kathy Griffin, at least Lisa came to Marcella's and she's actually cool people.

Blackout and BDSM

Now, there was a little issue that made my running arounds interesting. We had a black-out party that night. The first this year, a black out party is when we turn the lights out at midnight and folk dance to glowsticks and black lights. Essentially, everyone does their drugs, and a few people get fucked on the dancefloor, but you can't see shit. Since, I'm the light guy, I'm pretty much jobless at Black-out parties. I end up making my coins by dancing or running around for our manager, Richard. When I used to dance and whore around, I would dress up in my leather gear or something fierce and parade around dripping in glowlights. Nowadays, I'm getting older and grumpier and I can't stand to dance for tips and trolls as much, but I always try to do a little something for the black out parties. This time, I decided to borrow a custom made gas mask that belongs to a "boy" of mine. I think I scared a few people with it. If you are wondering why someone would own an Anubis style gas mask, let custom order it, lets just say my "boy" enjoys certain BSDM elements where this would come in handy. Think oxygen and sensory deprivation. I live a full life, eh? I also realized that night that I've crossed over in my alchohol tolerance for Jack Daniels. I was power drinking that night, and Joseph loves to pour strong drinks for me. Yet, I couldn't even taste the alcohol and I was pretty nimble running around for Lampinelli. However, look below and you can tell I was pretty lit...

Dinner with the Folk.

I paid for it in the morning however. Wasn't a hangover like I expected. No, Nater woke up still drunk at noon with my pops and my (for all intents and purposes) stepmom to take me out to lunch. We headed over to Pearl Street Grill to eat and then I got to show my Bradford living folks a bit of the Elmwood Strip. Ooh, I almost forgot, I picked up a new vinyl too. Urban Treeson. After Pearl, we went to Hero so I could introduce my folks to the people who have been taking my money that last few weeks, but they had their intern at the store.... Bah! Regardless, I caved to the Treeson craze and picked up the black and crying model. I skipped out on Saturday at the club, since Mike and I broke up, I've been wary of going out and dealing with fallout. I thought for a moment that since we ended things amicably that everything was ok, turns out he back to his bitter self again, this time talking about his "whore of an ex husband running off and fucking the Canadians," and how "he should break up every week, he feels so good." I'm trying to not let shit like that affect me, it just sucks to see another ex go the shady route. least I didn't have to break his ribs... yet.

• Lisa Lampinelli
• Wid Gas Masks
• Treeson

This brought my attention as I have most recently locked in an appointment with Randall at Divine Machine to get a tattoo for my birthday (Jan 16). I'm shying away from the normal tribal fare, and my goals are to get a design that matches what I am and what I do.  Possible choices are a copy of my Buffawhat logo, with a copyright tag, or perhaps the rooster from my favorite clothing line, Whiteboy. Whatever it will be, I completely identify with these science and Math geeks whose ink only further labels them into geekdom: This flickr set stemmed from a old post by Carl Zimmer, as he was wondering "how scientists tattoo themselves with their science." He got a great number of responses and a few months later dropped this set. I think I favor the DNA tattoos myself.

• via The Loom 

Taken 5 Nov '07, 6.41am EST PST.
I hate faux ghetto 16 year olds. They sound one step away from being on a Maury special. PS. The snap! form is back up. [edit: odd, this was sent from my phone about 3 days ago, it took that long to post this from flickr. heh, sometimes the automagicness of an API isn't so auto or magic]

Taken 4 Nov '07, 3.51pm EST PST.

This is the gnarly face of a boy who partied too hard. Thanks craig for the snap and a great time last night.

Taken 8 Sep '07, 5.20am EDT PST.

One dead metro bus. Now i get to wait for the next one with the driver.