My friend Otto had an idea a few months ago... An idea that no one else seemed to have yet, and an idea that would interest a large intersection of people in the proverbial Venn diagram:

The idea was to create a podcast for the nerdy sports enthusiast. Simple enough... Gather a few nerdy friends (who for some reason, all have the initials "B.L.") to talk about "the technology, the gear and the gadgets in sports" every week. Just like that, the Sport Nerd was born.

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Tim Hortons' Roll Up the Rim to Win promotion has been officially over for over a week now, which also means, I'm over a week late posting this. As per my yearly tradition, I keep track of my win rates on all of my coffee cups for the season. In 2010, I finished with 10 wins and 48 losses which is a pretty amazing 17.2% win rate. Not quite my all-time high of 17.3% back in 2008, but still pretty good!

Year   # Wins   Total Cups     %
2005      6         54       11.11
2006      5         50       10.00
2007      4         67        5.97
2008      9         52       17.31
2009      6         64        9.38
2010      10        58       17.24

Total     40        345      11.59

For some reason, the total number of coffees I drink over the same 2-month time period every year seems to fluctuate up and down. At least that means I'm not becoming more or less of a caffeine junkie.

Last weekend we were invited to the house of storm chaser, George Kourounis, where he showed us how to breath some spectacular fireballs - a little skill he picked up while traveling through India. Our antics documented below:


Fun fact: Kerosene tastes surprisingly smooth.

So it's now 2010 and I'm going to hop on the blog bandwagon with a year-end/decade-end review. Looking back at the "Aught's", I've been pretty lucky and fortunate enough to see and experience many parts of the world. My first big trip was through Europe in 2003 and I was hooked! That was followed by a trip to Asia in 2005, Africa in 2008 and the Himalayas in 2009. In total, I've set foot in 20 countries and 5 continents:

Not too shabby. Where will the next 10 years take me? We'll have to wait and see...

So Boxing Day/Week Madness is upon us once again here in Canada. This is when we, typically nice and friendly Canadians, head to the malls and fight other people for parking spots, that last door crasher deal sitting on the shelf, and the honour to spend hundreds of dollars just to save $20. Nonetheless, I headed out bright and early Saturday morning to pick up some deals myself. One stop was at Kitchen Stuff Plus where I had such amazing, out-of-their-way customer service that I just had to send them a note:

Boxing Day shopping is usually a time where customer service ceases to exist and stores focus on getting people in and out with their purchases as quickly as possible. My experience at the Yonge and Eglinton store Boxing Day morning was quite the opposite.

I went into the store at 8:15am looking for the advertised Henckels Stylus knife set. I walked around and could not find it so I asked one of the sales people (whose name I did not get). She said "I have to be honest with you. I've been here since 6am and I can't find it either. But I'll be glad to put your name down and call you when our warehouse guy comes in and finds them for me." I gladly left my name and number and left the store. Not 15 minutes later, I received a call from Perry notifying me at the knives have been located and there will be a unit waiting for me at the cashier.

It is service like yours that all stores and companies should strive for. Thanks for the great experience!

- Baron Lam

The Globe and Mail is currently running their Journalism Dream Contest where they're going to send one writer and one photographer to the Vancouver 2010 Olympics. Even though I've been published before, I'm a much better photographer than I am a writer. Now, I'm not saying that I'm an amazing photographer, but rather that I'm a horrible, horrible writer. Spend two minutes reading this blog and you'll quickly see this fact. But I digress...

What I need you to do though, loyal readers (the three of you know who you are), is to vote for me. Every. Day. Until November 22nd. But wait! There's more! As an incentive to vote, for every ballet you cast (for me), you will get one entry into a draw for a new laptop or DSLR camera. Sa-weet!

Brunch is one of my favourite things in life. The food and the company on a (sometimes hungover) Sunday morning - you can't beat it. My experience this past Sunday was just amazing!

We showed up at the Eglinton location of Boom Breakfast Company around noon only to see a big line of people waiting for tables. As I got my name onto the waiting list, I asked the manager for a rough guess on how long it's going to be. He said 15 minutes, but it was moving faster than that. 5 minutes later, he's walking around with a jug of coffee pouring everyone a cup! Then he comes back with waffle quarters and starts to hand them out to kids! With this little act of great customer service, I was immediately hooked on this place... The wait really was only about 10 minutes, but I would've waited all day. The menu and food was just as incredible. My only complaint? No liquor license = no breakfast Caesar :( But I suppose I'll live with that one...

On a related note, this week is also Customer Service Week... So be extra nice to all the people helping you this week!