I’m unemployed, too. The dot-com for which I was working is going belly-up, so they laid almost everyone off last week. I’ve been sending off resumes left and right, but no responses so far. This is bad, because I have no savings (I just graduated college in June, and bought my first car in October), and I have plenty o’ debt and various payments coming due soon. If I don’t hear back from people by Monday morning, I’m going to an employment agency. Sigh. There are a number of jobs out there that look really good to me, too! It’s very frustrating.
Luckily, I don’t have a cat, and I do have cable. 
Yaaay!
[sub]who, me? a vidiot? nooo…[/sub]
I resigned my job (the lead HelpDesk guy for our western division) last July and have been off since without a worry. (Sorry. Don’t really mean to gloat.) One thing about concentrating on work for so long is you don’t have time to spend the moolah. Long before I quit, I decided to leave the Seattle area for a place where I could buy some wooded acreage and build a house. (Plus, I was getting sick of the Seattle traffic and housing prices.) I moved across the state in November without a job awaiting me. Then came December holiday travel. Only now am I starting to look seriously for work. I’ve got enough of a nest-egg to live on the rest of the year. (No dependents except the cats. No major debts.)
Besides reading and writing, what’s kept me entertained for much of that time has been hearing of the problems my former office has been experiencing. When I turned in my resignation (with plenty of gentle warning that I would), I gave them a month’s notice. In a fit of pique they dumped me that day–no notice–thinking it would screw me up. They even tried to keep me from coming back to the office to pick up my personal effects. All the sudden termination did was to force me to spend the whole glorious summer off, riding my bicycle, reading, working on my novel, and, yes, playing with the cats. And then there’s the sadistic fun: In my absence, the company’s HelpDesk support collapsed (they had to quit taking calls). At first they thought, neener-neener, they could do without me or my position. Then they broke down and hired a replacement. Then they had to hire a second person to help do my job. And a few weeks ago I learned that my boss, the two-faced S.O.B. who masterminded the attempted screwjob, had a heart-attack. I tell ya, it’s a laff-a-minute.
P.S. It’s not a problem if you talk to your cats. Be worried, though, if they start answering back in full sentences.