Ribit,
Glad you're mostly back up!
I'm on Comcast, too. I didn't have a channel guide one day and they gave us a free month of one of the movie services. Surprised me, but it was good marketing on their part. They probably picked up customers, just not me. I watched movies non-stop for a few days. I could deal with that again.
My problem the other day turned out to be a cable. The sheath pulled apart from the connector on a 3' cable. I guess stuff happens. Don't know how.