As a bartender and a valet, I've easily averaged $15-25 an hour. Right now I'm making $25 an hour when I'm billing, and once I get home I'm not in the mood to do much computer work. Additionally, you can find service jobs anywhere, and start up very quickly.

I'd rather have the flexibility to move anywhere, the stimulation of constantly meeting new people, and some leftover desire for personal projects when I get home than to have a programming job I don't like.

Fair enough. Note that I'm not looking down on your choice of jobs (recently I've been thinking it would be cool to get a part time job as bartender but it's not feasible now) but I suppose they inevitably come with some hassle and that will be worse over time than the one-time hassle of the interviews. Besides I assumed your programming job would pay much more (well, it should).