My apologies for the delay between postings (especially to you Benny).  Been busy around here.  But while I was tending to other  matters, Petro-Canada has been piloting a cool new toy which is worth taking a look at.   If you live in or around Toronto or Vancouver, you can access up to the minute gas prices at Petro-Canada locations on our website.      

In early September I posted about the fact the high Canadian dollar was keeping our pump prices in Canada lower by about 14 cents per litre over the summer.   Since then, while the price of crude oil has gone up, so too has the loonie.  Now it's more in the 20 cent per litre range.  That means if the value of the Canadian dollar had not gone up in 2007, a 50 litre could be costing you $10 more right now.    Why are you saving 10 bucks?  Pump prices are closely tied to the market prices for crude oil and gasoline, which are set on US markets in US dollars.  Any change is quickly felt at the pump, especially when the loonie has more purchasing power.   Remember Katrina?  This time, it's a good thing for drivers and has been for most of the year.   As Bob and Doug once said..."Ten bucks is ten bucks."   Beauty, eh.

Photo credit: Gak

“Blah, blah, blah, Ginger…”  This is a line immortalized by the great Far Side cartoonist, Gary Larson.  (For those who haven’t seen this already, have a look at one of the great anthologies of Larson’s cartoons.)  In a nutshell, it is Larson’s interpretation of what a dog understands of a long list of instructions from its master.  In the communications world it has also come to represent the way an industry too often speaks over, under and around its customers, partners and others, and how people often rightfully stop listening to what we have to say.