A couple of people have asked if they can do anything to help. In the larger sense, no - I don't know what's behind this depression, if anything, nor do I think there's a magic incantation to fix it. I'll see my doctor this week, and even though work is only coming in bursts, those bursts do happen. In fact, something got done just tonight. Hooray for milestones.

If you want to throw a little love in my direction, though, take a look at my Amazon wish list, which I've selfishly and brazenly added to the top-left navigation bar on Herr Blogg. This is not a social occupation, and when there's nothing on TV (and that's most of the time), I stay engaged by keeping old movies and old TV shows on the DVD player, or new music in iTunes. I can normally throw a bit of money at this cause every month, but with the downturn in work has come a downturn in revenues, drastically limiting what I can spend on such diversions.

So I took a few minutes and updated the wish list, particularly the DVD list, particularly for television series I would normally find diverting for days but have not been able to purchase lately. I also ranked them by priority - I'd like the British series at some point, but they're not as familiar to me as the others and wouldn't fit my workstyle as well as the American series that I've seen before. I love the movies, too, but a movie on DVD is two hours of background for $15 while a TV series is anywhere from 12 to 26 hours for $35, and that's a pretty good bargain.

This isn't a "bleg" to donate to keep the blog going; it consumes few resources on machines and software we already use for other reasons, and it's just a place for me to dump emotional and inappropriate subject matter. The blog will stay around as it pleases me and as I have something to say; it's a journal, not a product. I have a few Amazon links and ads on here, but they don't bring enough in each quarter to buy a Cadbury Creme Egg and I don't expect they ever will.

This is stuff I would be purchasing for myself if I could. I've long used such things as a substitute for the social benefits of working around a variety of other people each day, since writers often don't do that. It's nothing major (I don't really expect anyone to send the $431.99 set of all four seasons of Star Trek: Enterprise on DVD), and it's nothing I'm really trying to expect. But if you want to "do something" while I'm down, those are things (especially the TV series) that would cheer me up. No purchase necessary for membership, void where prohibited, eat your vegetables, etc.

Updated: I forgot the actual link due to misuse of shortcuts. It's fixed now.