Although I invented the title myself, I’m not a fan of Throwing Up Links on Thursday. I’m still experimenting in what I’d like to call these speed posts, speedlinks, high fives, and drive-bys as some other people call them, because I don’t want to restrict myself to a particular day either. Whatever the case, today’s entry is not so much about spreading the link love to the rest of the blogosphere as it is about me discussing things that may not have warranted their own blog post.

For those of you who don’t know, I graduated from the University of British Columbia here in beautiful Vancouver, Canada. I majored in Psychology and minored in English Literature. The former interested me, but it was the latter that really got me to think (and gave me an opportunity to express said thoughts in the form of countless essays). Some people hate Shakespeare, but I think that the man — regardless of his supposed sexual orientation — is an absolute genius. The Bard on the Beach Shakespeare Festival kicked off this past weekend, and I’m kind of itching to go. I attended one time before, but I didn’t go to watch a Shakespeare play, per se. Instead, it was Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, an off-shoot parody of sorts for two of Hamlet‘s lesser characters. This year, I’m attracted to the performance of Julius Caesar. I don’t want to watch Romeo and Juliet or The Taming of the Shrew.

Last Sunday, Jane May put up a guest blog on John Chow dot Com where she gave tips on maximizing your daily efficiency. I got a little caught up with one of the comments, because I can really appreciate the sentiment of the post. As a freelance writer working from home, it’s hard to stay motivated all day every day, because there is no set schedule and no “boss” to tell me what to do. It’s a double-edged sword, because while I am afforded a fair bit of freedom, I am also given little to no direction. That’s part of why it’s hard to find a healthy life-work balance. Anyways, here’s my comment in its entirety:

It’s one thing when you’re on the company payroll, because you theoretically get paid whether you accomplish your goals or not (unless you’re on commission). For an entrepreneur like myself, however, if I don’t work, I don’t get paid and this is one of the greatest challenges to working from home (especially when you’re working for yourself).

The first thing that I do when I log into my computer in the morning is check my email and respond to anything that I think is urgent. I am guilty of getting sidetracked in doing this, because I’ll find myself reading John Chow dot Com, for example, instead of actually getting down to the things that pay the bills. I’m not a morning person, so it’s hard to “get started” fresh out of bed.

Instead of setting the five to ten items on your “to do” list as soon as you wake up, I think that it is a better strategy to do this before you go to bed the night before, revisiting these goals when you wake up. Things usually appear a little different after you sleep on them, so it’s good to see two perspectives on what needs to be done, even if both perspectives are your own.

Okay, I’m starting to ramble a bit. I might have to expand this comment into a blog post of my own. 🙂

Pirates of the Caribbean - When Does This End?

In keeping with my promise to review every movie I watch in 2007, I had the opportunity to soak in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End a few days ago, and let me tell you, this is one bloody long movie. That’s the one thing that really stuck out in mind — other than the fact that this is the summer of thirds with Shrek 3, Spider-Man 3, Ocean’s 13, and so on — and while I don’t typically have a problem with longer movies, this one felt like it just dragged on and on and on. It got to be painfully boring and drawn out, despite having a few ingenious moments of levity. I enjoyed the sequence with Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) in some unknown abyss, talking to himself, and throwing rocks that kept coming back to him. It was surreal seeing Chow Yun-Fat in his role as a Singaporean pirate and his character was very strange (and not in a good way). Even the final battle scene, while quite epic, was far too drawn out for its own good. I just wanted the bloody movie to end. What’s more, if you’re not intimately familiar with the details of the first two Pirates movies, you’re going to feel pretty confused at times. The story is harder to follow than it needs to be. In the end, if you’ve watched the first two flicks, you might as well watch this one to complete the experience. If you missed the first two, don’t bother watching the third. Three stars out of five.

And finally, this is going to sound completely off-topic (was I ever on topic?), but I read in the newspaper the other day that police officers in Mexico City have been given 20 Segways to use, because going on foot patrol can be pretty tiring, I guess. The cops will be riding the gyroscopic scooters through the capital’s bar, restaurant, and nightclub areas. We’re in a new age, folks.