Using codeigniter database class separately

[eluser]pilotdev[/eluser]
Great idea, but unfortunately that wont work in this case. My script basically acts as an RSS/Atom spidering tool - it can run for hours on end and a cURL request just wont cut it. I definitely need a more solid solution.

So basically CI can only function when it's bootstrapped through index.php? Is there any (easy) way to strip away all that complexity and just leverage the database and library classes?