Category Archives: genius

genius, schadenfreude

FedUp with FedEx Part V

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The Public Relations Department at FedEx received my tersely worded mountain of diabtribe. In response to their gross incompetence FedEx apologizes for the trouble I had using their shipping certificates. However, in typical American fashion, FedEx neither fully admits or fully apologizes for the sequence of events. They state that it was the responsibility of their local representatives to follow the terms of the certificate. They attempt to diminish the blow by writing in closing:

“Mr. Fager, not as compensation, but as a gesture of goodwill… an American Express gift cheque is enclosed…”

For the $40 in worthless FedEx shipping certificates I returned, they sent me $50, which I can use anywhere. What am I going to do with this small fortune? Purchase the domain rights to kenfager.com for another few years. That way this piece of FedEx garbage keeps floating around the interwebs for others to read.

The moral of the story is that people who can read and write are extremely difficult to manipulate. Go to school. Read a book. Write a letter.

genius, schadenfreude

Spreading the… Joy?

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Hohoho!

Last year a lucky few received this amazing unsolicited card. If you would like to receive this year’s RAD TO THE MAX-TREME Limited Edition Kaela and Ken Kristmas Kard (of Awesomeness) 2007 e-mail your mailing address to kenfager(at)gmail.com or leave it in the comments. We’re making a new one next week. The deadline is December 20 so hurry the fudge up.

PS: Offer good only to people either of us know.

apple, education, gaming, geek, genius

Obfuscation Rules

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It took days of failed attempts, but I’m now reliving my childhood. I figured out how to write Apple II disk images to those big 5.25 floppies. Sure there are emulators out there. Sure it is a whole lot easier to just download the disk image and play on a new iMac. It just isn’t the same. There is something truly satisfying about hearing those big drives click away. Here is what it took.

  • Mac OS 10.5 on an Intel iMac to download the disk images and drop them in a shared folder to go to…
  • Mac OS 10.4.9 on a PPC iMac that has support for…
  • Mac OS 9.2.2 which can run Bernie II the Rescue, an Apple IIgs emulator that can manipulate the files, which can then be transfered via 3.5 floppy to…
  • Mac OS 7.0.1 on a Macintosh Classic which can write to ProDOS disks, which are compatible with…
  • Apple GSOS 6.0.1 which runs on an Apple IIgs.

What is the end product for all this hassle? Number Munchers, Odell Lake, Battleship, and Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy are just the beginning. Oregon Trail… I’ve got my eyes on you next.

genius, internet, politics

Bravo Trent

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Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor had an interesting post on his website today.

Hello everyone. I’ve waited a LONG time to be able to make the
following announcement: as of right now Nine Inch Nails is a totally
free agent, free of any recording contract with any label. I have
been under recording contracts for 18 years and have watched the
business radically mutate from one thing to something inherently very
different and it gives me great pleasure to be able to finally have a
direct relationship with the audience as I see fit and appropriate.
Look for some announcements in the near future regarding 2008.
Exciting times, indeed.

First off, bravo Trent. You get a golf clap. In a bold move Trent Reznor has taken his band away from the influence of the malicious RIAA and his stifling record label. This separation was not unnexpected. For a long time now Reznor has been vocal about his fans having access to his music. By releasing the tracks online in a mix-ready format, by leaving USB drives at concerts loaded with tracks, and by encouraging fans to download his music Reznor has undercut everything the RIAA so desperately has been fighting by taking music lovers to court. Rather than persecute his fans Reznor has adapted to the new music distribution model.

The technology savvy Reznor has proven that he no longer needs the support of the label or the RIAA to be successful. Any user of a new computer has access to the same multimedia suites Reznor does. It is entirely possible for Johnny Noname to produce a studio quality album without the need for expensive equipment. Reznor also recognizes the implications of the more pervasive iPod and the views that current generation hold in regards to media. The costs of downloading untethered media for free are infinitely more attractive than paying for tracks that limit you to a certain device, number of times you can burn, etcetera. The key is to provide quality content that people will ultimately decide, “Hey, this song really rocks. I’m going to buy the album/DVD. Then I’m going to go buy tickets to the concert.”

I look forward to doing just that the next time you roll into Milwaukee or Madison Trent. The last time I saw you in concert led to an album and DVD sale. It is dichotomously infuriating and funny to encounter the effects the RIAA has had on the industry. They sue their fans and yet complain that physical CD sales are on a perpetual slump. They implement invasive DRM that makes media incompatible with players and then get lose the following lawsuit. Reznor has jumped ship and I can’t wait until the iPod generation is at the helm to deal a deathblow the RIAA’s dying business model.

genius, theology

Winning Reception

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If the people who ran Green Bay practiced football as a religion, I would be burned at the stake for renouncing long ago my love of the game. The Packers, Brett Favre, and the ongoings of the season ebb and flow every year without gaining insomuch as a murmur of intrigue from me. The other night, however, I caught a piece of advertising that was truly brilliant.

Nike’s “Leave Nothing” commercial spoke volumes without saying nary a word. The camera follows Shawn Merriman as a pummels his way through oncoming opponents on his defensive march. The backgrounds, players, and weather conditions fluidly shift every few fleeting moments. Near the endzone Merriman forces a critical error and Steven Jackson gains the ball. The opposing goal now in sight, he begins the march. All the while, the slow and methodic bagpipes from the Last of the Mohican’s track “Promontory” crescend. With only grunts and the clashing of helmets these gridiron warriors bellowed forth their drama. In the final moment, without clear resolution, we are left suspended.

It is rare, exceedingly rare, for me to take notice to advertising, let alone advertising for a product I have a particular distaste for. Bravo advertising firm on creating this work of art. But I still hate football and Nike shoes.

deutsch, genius

Love con Carne

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On the journey to becoming a man I had many missteps, but my father was always there to give sage advice. One of those nuggets of wisdom was, “If you truly love someone, tell them how you feel and be honest.” This was of course easier said than done. Thankfully I understand now what he meant.

Hot Pockets!

I love Hot Pockets Chile con Carne and they don’t have them in the US. It pains me to think that I will be seperated from my spicy-available-only-in-Germany love. Being a man I took matters into my own hands and laid my feelings out on the table.

Letter

The letter reads:

Dear Hot Pocket People,

In Germany I ate these like a meth addict craves crystal meth. Why do they not exist in the US? WHY?! The flavor-gasm alone is worth the import fees. Please make it easier for me to become morbidly obese like my hero and child actor Robert Stack. (He was the guy from Unsolved Mysteries.)

Heart Love,

Ken

genius, review

FedUp with FedEx – Update

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Three weeks ago I was entrenched in a struggle to get a vital package of medicine from FedEx. Their constant delays were chronicled by an extensive writeup. I have just been informed via e-mail that the folks at FedEx Customer Relations are in damage control. They promptly replied to my terse letter in kind. They have refunded my parents $230 of the original $270 cost. They have also sent three $20 vouchers for my future shipping needs. I believe this act may be response to the 69 Euro ($94 USD) I had to pay to pick up the package.

FedEx Customer Relations did the right thing. No customer should have to fight a corporate entity for service clearly outlined in their mission statement. I accept FedEx’s generosity in recovering most of the costs even though I expected nothing in return. I will be using the certificates because, after all, I have paid for them.

I still, however, retain my firm stance against recommending and/or utilizing their services. I will still go out of my way to ship with other more reliable carriers.

genius

Kosher Bat

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The city in which fictional millionaire philanthropist Bruce Wayne lives and works by night as Batman is pronounced “Gotham.” It is not, as I previously insisted with interrogative inflection, pronounced “Got Ham.”

deutsch, geek, genius

Kunst des Verderbens

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Verderben is a german noun that means decay or degenerate. As an amateur photographer I rarely get the opportunity to capture Verderben in its progression. It is the antonym of growth. Humans invest countless resources constructing the tangeable, while time, an elusive intangeable, effortlessly destroys. It is this balance in the Lord’s creation that often get overlooked or dismissed as “ugly.” Magazines use Photoshop to conceal Verderben to create beauty. True beauty lies in graceful decay.

Hessia Fabrik

This weekend I stumbled across a factory is Butzbach, which lies between Frankfurt and Giessen in Hessen, Germany. This factory complex proudly proclaimed that it had been open for over 100 years. By all indications, however, the factory was abandoned around 1998. My intentions were to ride around Butzbach getting better photographs of the surrounding area than I hade taken during Hessentag (a local festival). Instead I spent a good portion of the afternoon entranced by the remnants of what used to be a thriving place where people made farm equipment.

You may view some of the photos at my Flickr album here.