I get my Daily Show fix.

I’m not a big fan of television. It’s the universal pacifier and the majority of current programming is so mindless that I think it can do more harm than good. But there is one television program I try hard not to miss: The Daily Show. I find Jon Stewart’s news commentary both eye opening and extremely entertaining. In fact, when the writers’ strike was in full-swing, it was the only program I missed.

At home, I watch The Daily Show via DVR (digital video recorder, like TiVo, that’s built into our Dish Network satellite receiver). Not only can I store them away until I have time to watch them, but I can fast-forward through the commercials. (I really hate watching commercials. What a complete waste of time!) But here in Quincy, where I’m spending the summer in my camper, I don’t have a television at all. And after a week of withdrawal from the Daily Show, I decided to do something about it.

While I can go to Comedy Central’s Web site and view entire episodes online, my funky, unreliable Internet connection makes that positively painful. Too many pauses! So I broke down and bought a “season pass” on the iTunes Store. For $9.99, I can get the next 16 episodes of The Daily Show downloaded directly to iTunes. Even though my Internet connection fades in and out, iTunes keeps track of where the connection broke and resumes the download from that point. So I can actually download an episode over several Internet sessions. I can then watch the episodes at my leisure.

I should mention here that I’m a bit of a news junkie. The stereo in my camper is almost always tuned into NPR. While NPR gives one view of the news, it’s great to be able to supplement it with Jon Stewart’s take on current events.