I just realized that sounds like a sob story below. It's not meant to be - there are others in far worse positions. I have a job at least, which is a far safer place to be than a lot of my friends.
But my laptop is dead, and that *does* make me feel like sobbing. It should be under warranty though. Now I have to find all my purchase info. Dead laptop == no (non work) development occuring. So AxKit, XML::LibX(ML|SLT), etc are stagnating right now.