I work with a recruiting agency to find short-term contract gigs while I'm looking for more permanent work. It gives me breathing room that allows me to be much more selective about which permanent positions I'm willing to take. "Short term" here means 3-6 month contracts, not a couple of days, so this may not meet your needs.

The key is to find a good agency. There are lots of bad ones. If this is an avenue that might interest you, I recommend asking around the dev crowd in your area to find out which ones are good.