Last week's cable outage wasn't just inconvenient because I lost our WiFi connection. The sudden interruption in service rendered our TV completely inoperable as well, cutting short the episode of "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" we were watching. Halfway through seeing the recorded show on our TiVo, we were met with static and a mixture of garbled video and sound.The outage lasted for a little over an hour, wiping out the rest of the Studio 60 episode and Thursday night's show of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on Comedy Central. In theory all channels were out at that time, but those were the ones our TiVo was watching.
Thank goodness for iTunes. Rather than being in a panic due to the show's miss, or calling somebody out of area to see if they recorded the show on VHS, this evening, I just went to the iTunes Store and downloaded the Studio 60 episode. Sure, it cost me $1.99, but that's a small price to pay for convenience, and finding out how the show ended. Given NBC's reticence to treat the show with any kind of commitment, it's likely the only time it will ever air, and we've come this far, seeing every episode, starting with the pilot.
Apple may make headlines for the crazy cool hipsters in the company's iPod ads, but iTunes is always there for me when I need it, even for little things like this. Comcast? Not so much.