If it started in Canada why do they call it the 100 mile challenge? Should it not be the 100km challenge? Or if you want to keep the distance the same, why not call it the 160.93 km challenge?

My wife was flipping the channels the other day and came across the 100 mile challenge on the food network. For those of you who don’t know what this is, participants are challenged to go 100 days eating ONLY food originating from within 100 miles of where they live. This includes everything right down to raw goods such as flour, sugar, and salt. If the food you eat has preservatives, all those preservatives must have come from within that 100 mile radius.

My wife has decided that she wants to try this for the month of July. I am not sure what I will do without bread – no wheat is grown around there parts – or sugar, or salt! Yikes! They say you can extract salt from sea water, but I dunno…

I get the concept from an environmental standpoint – the less distance food has to travel, the less the carbon foot print, it all makes good ecological sense – I just don’t know if I can go without all those great foods I have learned to love. At least it’s only for a month.

I started to also think about this challenge from a different perspective, the financial one. With all this economic turmoil and crashing economy, it kind of makes sense to keep as much as, if not all, food purchases local. Not only does it help the environment, but it helps the local economy, which is always a good thing.

Up here in Canada we are certainly feeling the economic crunch – perhaps not as badly as our neighbors to the south, but its still impacting things around here. I don’t want to further damage the US economy, but it seems to me that if more Canadians started buying 100% local, or at least 100% Canadian, it would help all of us Canadians out in the end.

So start small, try eating locally. I think after July is over, I will go back to my ways and start consuming imported products again, but I do plan on purchasing more stuff locally where I can.

Recently we received a notice in the mail. Switch to Shaw Digital and get a FREE HDPVR. This sounds great! We were already a Shaw customer for Internet and Phone, and thought we might make the switch from Star Choice.

Well, Star Choice is now owned by Shaw, and has changed names to Shaw Direct. As a result Shaw will not extend the offer to us. They say they are only offering it to people switching from other competing companies. I can understand that, but its quite annoying – simply because the direct mail they sent us didn’t say anything about that.

My wife called Star Choice (now Shaw Direct) to try and get the deal from them, saying “Shaw Digital is offering this deal, so if you cant match it, then we will switch to Bell”. After more than an hour on the phone with 6 different employees, the best Shaw Direct could offer was an HD PVR for $499… interesting, considering that they are offering that anyways!!!

We have been using Star Choice for nearly 5 years now, and until this recent event, have had great customer service. It seems that only when they made the switch to Shaw Direct that their service has gone significantly down hill. It is funny really – in this tough economy companies should be doing whatever they can to keep their customers, instead they are letting us walk away. They are willing to watch a loyal customer of 5 years spend their money elsewhere. Does that make any sense? I don’t think so.

If Shaw Digital can afford to give away a FREE HDPVR for a new customer, you would think that Shaw Direct could afford to give away a FREE HDPVR to retain a customer – after all, it’s really the same thing.

So after all these years with StarChoice, we will say goodbye, all because your parent company made us an offer that they are not willing to stand behind.

Once upon a time, many years ago, I used to work at Office Depot. The retail days of employment are long behind me, but the job wasn’t bad. While we had our busy days, for the most part, the store seemed much quieter than the nearby Staples.

I always found it interesting that Office Depot advertised very little, where Staples advertises like crazy, and they seem to do a good job with it. I mean, who hasn’t heard of the slogan “that was easy”? Hell, they even sell the “easy button” from their commercials. What has Office Depot done that is memorable in advertising? I can’t think of a single thing – and I worked there for a few years!

Today I read that Office Depot is closing 112 stores in the US and Canada, cutting its workforce by 2,200 jobs. It seems that they are in financial trouble, and this is their band-aid solution. I have to wonder though, if they boosted their advertising, they may be able to boost their sales, and in turn allow those 2,200 people to not lose their jobs.

Not long ago gas was $1.50 a liter, and $150 a barrel. Pretty simple math, a liter of gas at a cost of 1% that of a barrel of oil.

Today, The cost of oil is about $50 a barrel, but the cost per liter is $0.88 – 1.76%. Why is there not a clean ratio here? Seems, that while the price per barrel has dropped substantially, our price per liter has not dropped at the same pace. How can they say they are not gouging – should gas not be around $0.50 a liter today? I would really like to see a very detailed report outlining how gas prices are set – this just aint right.

Also, they say that as the cost per barrel drops, our pump prices will drop, but it takes a few months to see the effect, HOWEVER, when the cost per barrel rises, the pump prises rise over night – why dont they also take a few months to impact us customers?

I just wish that I could park my car and simply not consume fuel – but, as the gas companies know, they simply have us over a barrel.

In the late 90’s GM stock was nearing the $100 mark. Since then it has slowly been falling – now, it sits right around $3, closing today at $3.01. It reached $2.75 just the other day – the lowest it has been since 1946.

The stock market is seeing major drops all over the place right now, so it is no surprise that GM is also down, but to see a low that has not been reached for more than 60 years is down right scary.

GM is in trouble – big trouble. It looks like they may be filing for chapter 11 bankruptcy, or possibly seeking a government bail out, but regardless, their troubles don’t end at GM, if GM folds, this will have a HUGE ripple effect that will impact…  well… millions and millions.

According to a report at CNN Money, GM spends roughly $31 Billion each year on parts from more than 2100 suppliers. When you cut that cash flow, not only do you put literally thousands of businesses in the pinch, this has the effect of mass layoffs all over the US from the effected companies.

Don’t forget about all the dealerships. Apparently there are more than 14,000 struggling GM dealerships in the US. If GM has major cutbacks, or even folds, this will impact employees at all these locations. All of this will impact thousands upon thousands of people who may see layoffs or other scaled back employment, these people then spend less money (cause they have less) and everywhere their money would normally go is then impacted. The ripple effect is huge.

I’m no expert when it comes to this stuff, but I have to say, it doesn’t look too good to me – and this is only 1 of the “big 3” who are in trouble. Ford and Chrysler aren’t any better off.

Good thing I live in Canada – we are immune to this stuff… right? At least I drive an import.