This weekend we had a chance to utilize Comcast's On Demand service, renting one movie and watching some previously aired episodes. In all, it was a good experience, bringing my entertainment immediately, without waiting for time to download, or taking up hard disk space. Also, the cost for a relatively new movie was only $3.99, contrasted with the $9.99 to $12.99 I could expect to pay for a movie from iTunes. I continue to feel that iTunes is a much better option for music than it is for video, to date.

That's the background behind my most recent contribution to The Apple Blog, titled How Will Apple Compete With “On Demand”?. Per agreement with them, I will not be cross-posting the piece, but instead, have provided a link. Enjoy.

On Saturday, I speculated that U.S. Web traffic was down significantly for the Memorial Day weekend, as I had seen a spike in the percentage of international visits to the blog. But the drop-off wasn't nearly as stark as the reduction in total posts received by my tracked RSS feeds in Google Reader for a typical Monday. On the whole, total postings were down on Saturday, Sunday and Monday, with Monday's holiday being down more than 40% off average.


I typically read about 500 RSS items per weekday, and half that number on Saturday and Sunday, according to my Google Reader trends.


My Google Reader stats, by day, with Mondays marked.

• On May 28th, Memorial Day, I read exactly 300 items.
  
• On May 21st, I read 509 items.
  
• On May 14th, I read 553 items.
  
• On May 7th, I read 530 items.
  
• On April 30th, I read 515 items.

Assuming the total number of RSS feeds I read remained constant, the usual 526.75 average I could expect for a Monday had been whittled down by 44%.

Sunday and Saturday were also down, but to a lower degree. On May 27th, I read 259 items, whereas my typical Sunday list tops 280. The decline was only about 10%. On May 26th, I read 248 items, whereas a typical Saturday list is about 260. Saturdays are almost always the lightest days of the week, and the drop-off was miniscule.

Causes for the decline are numerous, of course. With most U.S. offices close, you would see a drop of work-related news, technology events to cover, and press releases to hit the wires. Some took the holiday away from the computer altogether. Others considered Monday a blog holiday as well. But rather than just have a gut feeling that traffic was down overall, Google Reader's stats give us a statistical benchmark.

On March 29, 2004, my 1998 Mercury Tracer passed the 100,000 mile mark. 1,157 days later, while driving home from tonight's 5-3 Oakland A's victory over the Texas Rangers, the odometer rolled to 125,000 exactly, where it remains, parked outside our condo.

The milestone itself isn't all that significant, but it's a good marker to see how much I'm driving. 25,000 miles over 1,157 days shows an average of only 21.6 miles per day over the last 3-plus years, which tells me that aside from commuting to and from the office five days a week, I really don't get out much.

The commute to work is 7.5 miles, according to Google Maps, so the act of simply going to and from the office covers 75 of the 151.2 miles driven on average per week over the last four years, assuming I go to the office five days a week, every week. That's about half of all my driving, even with 40 or so A's games and Cal Bears games in the East Bay per year, and the occasional visit to see the family in Palo Alto, Sacramento, Paradise or Chico.

So, either I could argue I have no life, or that I live in an area nearby all I need, from groceries to entertainment. I could also say I'm trying to conserve the environment, or that my wife and I take her car often enough that I'm not racking up the miles like I once did. Regardless, for having 125,000 miles behind it, the car is in remarkable shape. I haven't had to get it serviced for a really long time, aside from the occasional oil change. As much as I may dream of a better, fancier car, or look envious at hybrids to do what's right, we're in a pretty good spot with our 10-year-old clunker.

Cross-posted to Athletics Nation...

One by one, the A's marquee players have joined the growing ranks of the disabled list. First, it was Mark Kotsay, followed closely behind by Esteban Loaiza and Bobby Kielty. Then, more joined in. Bradley. Street. Piazza. Duchscherer. After some behind the scenes investigation, the ANtics uncovered a scandal so dark it will rattle the very foundation of baseball. The players just wanted a vacation. Given the A's usual June surge, why waste their time hustling the first two months? More of this breaking story below...


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