Breathing In

After having a bit of a tumultuous March, I've entered a period of zen, punctuated by periods of extreme intoxication [maybe they're the same, who knows?], punctuated by visits to Canada's biggest city that also has my favourite ball team. It's pretty much OK. They're hitting some timely clutch home runs.

There's this website called The Book Depository that is kind of like Amazon only it's based in Britain, is slightly less sinister and slightly cheaper, and it has a free worldwide shipping policy on any item you purchase. It's no independent corner bookstore, but you can find lots of good stuff there.

This site also has this weird option that allows you to see exactly what people all over the world are purchasing at any given moment, in real time. It's pretty amazing, addictive, and transfixing, in a very zen way. I can (and do) watch it for hours. It makes me inappropriately happy seeing someone in New Zealand purchase a book called There Are Cats in This Book. It's also totally worth following for the times the map randomly flashes and drags you somewhere else. Though most of the purchases are from the U.S, Canada, Western Europe, Australia and NZ (I guess free shipping really does its magic there), every once in a while you get a complete outlier. Someone in Iceland purchasing the first volume of All-Star Batman and Robin; someone in South Korea buying a copy of Treasure Island; someone in Cyprus buying a the first book of the Chronicles of the Necromancer - Dark Ladys Chosen; someone in Oman buying a book on SQL. Anyways, you get my point, I hope.

Oh, and listen to this, it helps:



Breathing Out.