It’s time, once again, to reacclimate to the soulless monotony that is my nine-to-five, five-day-a-week slow death. That is, I’m back at the good ol’ U of Pa. Press. After five days of subsisting almost entirely on dead bird carcass, Oregon’s finest booze, marzipan and pie, my body has entered into its usual state of withdrawal, and I’ve spent most of Monday with a migraine–one of those screaming ones, like what you get when you sit babies Frances and Winifred on Santa’s lap at the mall. The idea of getting work done today seems laughably absurd, but I’ve been trying my hardest–and quickly going cross-eyed in the process. Before my vision completely punks out, though, I wanted to share this one very important video with all of you. If seeing chimpanzees doing karate doesn’t cheer your up and help bring you out of your post-holiday funk, then sir, I give up. You may as well just take December off.

It’s been eight months since my friend Andy first floated the idea of creating a web log. Initially, my plan was to create a hybrid of Plastic and Friendster; that is, a site where my buddies could share interesting articles they’ve read, and then other friends could rate the articles and comment on them. Conceptually, I think this idea is still sound; practically speaking, eh, not so much.

So, back in April, Andy introduced me to the wonderful world of Movable Type, and I’ll been scribbling away here ever since. At some point along the way I created Plugs, a somewhat bastardized version of my original grand vision. Judging by the recent string of posts from friends, about everything from kitty insurance to on-line restaurant reservations, Plugs has finally caught on. You know when Meg Leary is asking for a username you’ve hit the big time.

Still, Turkeymonkey is my first web mistress. And you never forget your first. Now, on the eve of our three-quarters-of-one-year anniversary, seems as good a time as any to take stock. After the jump I’ll share a few of the things I’ve learned as an infant blogger.

Uploaded a few more wedding photos last night. First off, my apologies for misplacing the shots of Ko puking and Dan exposing himself. Those will have to wait ’til next week. On a more positive note, I was able to find this shot of my groomsmen inexplicably jumping off a brick wall somewhere on Woodland Walk — or whatever that alley in back of Wharton is called. Note the way that Gabe is already hitting the ground before everyone else has taken off. All I have to say to this is: Gabe, did you really think that I was going to hobble you again, two months in a row? If so, then you’s was right, biz-atch. I’ll get you and your ankle again soon, don’t worry.

You can see the rest of these new photos by going to the Photoblox window in the sidebar, below the turkey, and clicking on Album #2.

Since we got back from the honeymoon, almost a month ago now, the one question that I get asked, time after time, is: So, what’s different now that you’re married? Usually, I just stutter out something like, “Uh, it’s weird calling her my wife. Wifey. The Mrs.” And though there’s a kernel of truth here, it’s actually not very weird and I kind of like it. In Belize I trotted around the pool bellowing, “Where’s my wife, WHERE’S MY WIFE,” with glee. So aside from having a new, semi-humorous nickname for Ana, not a whole lot has changed.

At least, that’s what I thought up until a few days ago, when Ana told our friends about how I send myself emails with Christmas gift suggestions. Not ideas on what to get friends and family, she excitedly reported, but “weird gadgets that he wants for himself!” (The email, by the way, was pointing to Griffin Techonology’s RadioSHARK, a sort of TiVo for the radio. It suffices to say that this is not weird but rather brilliant and perfectly necessary for any self-respecting NPR aficionado.)

Anyway, it took a couple seconds for the weight of Ana’s last statement to sink in. Slowly, I connected the dots: “Wait, honey, have you been reading my emails?”

Ana hemmed and hawed, and then said, “Well, yeah. Of course.”

“How long have you been doing this?” The walls were beginning to close in and panicked at the thought of her seeing all my private correspondence. Until I realized that, hey, I don’t really have any private correspondence. Except for my emails with [email protected], which aren’t really private so much as guttural strings of nonsensical monkey gibberish.

Still, the notion of Ana voyeuristically browsing my Yahoo account doesn’t seem right, does it? Let’s just settle it this way: If I get the radioSHARK next month, all will be forgiven; If I’m subjected to another Christmas of v-neck sweaters and slacks, I’m changing my password on December 26.

I’ve just done a little reformatting of the blog sidebar. Matt suggested that I give a bigger visual cue for the link to Plugs (if you haven’t already, check out Gabe’s Nov. 14 post about office signage), and I experimented with few photo plugins. The photo viewer that I’ve settled on Photoblox, which can display my wedding pics in a cool little slideshow format (the window is just under the Plugs turkey). If you click on the little icons in the upper-right-hand corner of the window, you can navigate manually. The best part of all this: I don’t have to individually load all of my photos through the cumbersome Movable Type interface. I can just put ‘em up on Snapfish or Ofoto or Shutterfly, copy the links, and Photoblox does the rest. Cool, eh?

Alright, not cool. And sorta time consuming. But still better than doing real work.