Adventures Of An Unemployed Gamer

First, some background information: I was laid off this summer after three years of managing a computer lab at an art college here in Chicago. The lay off was unexpected, but it wasn't exactly a shock, either. But it definitely threw a wrench in a lot of my plans, though, like a trip to Oregon to see my new niece and a little vacation to Las Vegas for the national roller derby convention.
In the beginning I wasn't too worried. As a matter of fact, in the preceding weeks I had been thinking about quitting and going back to temping for a while, which is what I had done for a year when I moved to the city. I was getting burned out for a variety of reasons and was quickly realizing that the job was pretty much a dead end. After my last day I had a lot of friends giving me tips on available jobs, but after a couple of weeks all of those trails went cold. I went back to my old temp agency since they always did a good job of keeping me busy and I had hopes that a temp assignment could lead to something permanent, which is how I got my job at the college. So far, though, I've spent two hellish weeks pushing papers for a lumber company and a few days here and there doing filing for corporations. And I have the paper cuts to prove it. The Chicago Board of Trade has contacted them about me twice for long term assignments, but have flaked out both times.
It's going on three weeks now without an assignment and things are getting grim. But besides the obvious financial difficulties, there's the problem of sheer boredom being at home all day. I spend a lot of time online sending out applications and resumes (I'm even applying for a job at EA's Chicago studio) but a big problem with that is that there's no way to make a follow-up call. So far all of hose emails have gone unanswered. With the rest of my free time I have my guitar and bass, the internet, and games. And television. I don't have cable, but we have this retro TV station which I guess would approximate TV Land. I've developed a fondness for Hawaii 5-O. Some of the 80s reruns are amusing in a bad way...and it's weird how many details I remember about some of them, like the Diff'rent Strokes episode where Dudley is molested by Gordon Jump, or the one where Arnold and Dudley meet Knight Rider at Universal studios (that was a two-parter, with the boys hiding in a car that's about to be blown up on the set as a cliffhanger)... Good stuff.
So how does this all tie into gaming? Well, despite the fact that I'm currently $75 short on my rent for this month, the main concern on my mind is how I'm going to get a copy of Gears Of War next week...