GOOGLE'S BOOK SEARCH BETA

A few month’s ago while looking up some information on a particular book, one of the results returned by Google directed me towards their new GOOGLE’S BOOK SEARCH BETA. Ever since I discovered this little gem of Google’s, I have been using it nonstop. If you have a Google user name, you are even able to add titles to your own library. Currently, I’ve got a fair number of titles in my library, and anyone interested can check my books out HERE. You’ll probably notice a bit of a trend regarding my current interests!

Once you’ve searched for a title, a number of title links will be presented to you - or you can do a more general topic search with these results returned instead. Depending on the book itself, you’ll be able to access its information by one of three means. You can either get the full preview of the book, a limited preview or a snippet view. The final one returns a page with all of the specifics of the particular book while the other two offer so much more. Even with a limited preview, normally you are able to read substantial portions of the book, generally a few chapters at the very least. If you really want to read the entire book and this is not an available option, there are ways around this though a tad bit time consuming and annoying.

Pretty much clearing your browser’s history and cache will allow you to choose otherwise unavailable chapters - restarting your browser after deleting the above mentioned files certainly doesn’t hurt either. Also, if you have multiple browsers installed on your computer then you can usually open them up and read different chapters amongst your various browsers - by different, I mean Opera, Firefox, Internet Explorer. If you’ve got one of the many IE based browsers installed, your history/cache for all of these will ultimately be treated as one and the same.

One of the recent books that I just finished is entitled Mothers and Illicit Drugs. This book speaks to me on so many levels so I found it particularly helpful. If you go HERE, you can ready some of the book’s more important pages. I’ve created a web page with a number of thumbnails to direct you to these important passages. The page itself is especially easy to navigate.

THE ABYSS

February has not been particularly kind to me so I’ve found myself absent from the blogosphere in more ways than one! Pretty much up until today, I’ve been filled with an overwhelming amount of apathy and everything that tends to accompany these feelings of nothingness. Every so often I find myself in this exact same place, and I never really can identify specifically what brought me here. All that I do seem to know is this ever present and all pervasive kind of sadness. Seems to drape itself around my shoulders and until it decides to loosen its grip, I’m left feeling incredibly defenseless and vulnerable. Funny thing is that I also have a near impossible time identifying why suddenly one day, this feeling somehow no longer exists, having vanished completely into thin air. I rarely, if ever, even speak of my blue moments as I tend to be embarrassed if I show any sort of weakness. I know, I know, this is the farthest thing imaginable from logic, and yet, it is a habit that I’ve managed to develop over the years. It is also a habit that is particularly hard to break. I think that this may be wrapped up with my issues dealing with having to be a near perfectionist in anything that I try or do. When you’re a perfectionist, one of the hardest things to do is allow others to see any potential weaknesses that could possibly be used against you. OK, sounding more and more like a junky with each and every word typed…Paranoid much? Once a…always a…

So, moving right along now…Regardless of what precipitated these feelings, by the beginning of this month, I was well on my way to feeling deeply buried by them. Normally once I get to this stage, one of two things generally happen. I either become near manic in my behavior, starting - and most often finishing - any number of projects. If I am not knee deep this hyper mania, then I am most likely lethargic beyond belief with no amount of sleep seeming to alleviate this never ending tiredness. I could remain in bed for any number of weeks if I allow myself to indulge my pity party any more than I realistically should. Self absorption much? No, not really, but when I am, I more than make up for this that’s for bloody sure. Thank goodness for my Jim as he is not only extremely patient and tolerant of these moods, but he is my map back to reality, without wounding or hurting my already fragile state. He always allows me a reasonable period of time for me to indulge myself properly, but once this time has passed, he reigns me in tout suite! He rarely has difficulty identifying what seems to have triggered these moods, nor does he have any problems identifying what needs to be done to get me out of my funk.

This time, and I suspect most of my other times, he attributed to plain, old fashioned boredom. He’s most likely correct, although blaming solely boredom is just a bit too simplistic in my opinion. Actually, once I had managed to shrug off my mantle of lethargy, I returned to reading my favorite blogs and one recent entry at The Australian Heroin Diaries certainly identified a large component of what I seemed to be struggling with in this entry. Even though I have been drug free for near three years this time, I definitely seem to be suffering from the loss of interest in normal activities and interests/hobbies. It’s not so much this loss that troubles me in the end, but the fear that this could be a permanent state of mind, something that I may never be able to recover from. Perhaps this is simply one of the prices that we are forced to pay as a result of our years of uncontrollable and selfish substance abuse with no thought or regard to potential consequences because of our actions. It certainly would be justly deserved, although not remotely welcome. The horrific part of all of this is that I know that I wouldn’t have changed my previous behavior even fully aware of what the end result would be. How selfish is that!?!

Anyway, all that I really wanted to accomplish with this post was to give all a heads up, and to calm any worriers out there. Yes I was MIA longer than I should have been, especially as I didn’t even bother to post so much as a simple I’m alive post. Truly, bloody selfish indeed. To make amends then, I shall bore each and everyone with constant and multiple updates, so many, your heads may actually start to spin!

CURRENT PLAYLIST FEB 2009

R.E.M - Crush With Eyeliner
Blondie - One Way or Another
Dead Kennedys - California Uber Alles
God Bullies - Like It Like That
Iggy Pop - Candy
Joy Division - Sister Ray (Live)
Korn & Kittie - This Town
Nine Inch Nails - Physical
Psychedelic Furs - Pretty In Pink
The Clash - Police and Thieves
Oasis - Don't Look Back In Anger
Psychedelic Furs - India
Radiohead - Creep
Roxy Music - Stranded
Sinead O'Connor - Nothing Compares 2 U
Soft Cell - Sex Dwarf
The Smiths - How Soon is Now
The Strokes - Last Nite
White Zombie - Thunder Kiss '65
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - Screaming Gun
Mansun - Wide Open Spaces
Adam And The Ants - Ant Music
the Music - You Might As Well Try To Fuck Me
Stone Temple Pilots - Sour Girl
Foo Fighters - Darling Nikki
Bauhaus - She's In Parties
Joy Division - Transmission
Depeche Mode - Personal Jesus
Psychedelic Furs - Love My Way
The Clash - Train in Vain
Billy Idol - Eyes Without A Face
The Cure - Love Song
Depeche Mode - Useless
Echo and the Bunnymen - the Killing Moon
The Distillers - Drain The Blood
The Jam - Town Called Malice
The Cult - Firewoman
Adam and the Ants - Ant Invasion
Bauhaus - Ziggy Stardust (David Bowie cover)
Psychedelic Furs - Sister Europe
Depeche Mode - Barrel of a Gun

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My bad...have been feeling rather apathetic these past few weeks so I've not been doing much updating. Am seriously hoping for a change of mood!