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The Merriam Webster dictionary defines synergy as “a mutually advantageous conjunction or compatibility of distinct business participants or elements (as resources or efforts)”

Anyone with any experience in a workplace will know it as a management buzzword that smacks of horseshit. When asked to define what synergy is you would invariably get the reply “1 + 1 = 3″

Not very helpful is it?

Synergy always annoyed me probably because like most people I didn’t understand or want to know the concept but it hit me like a ton of bricks over in the pub last night. Let me explain:

As it’s near christmas time, drink flows freely and occassionally a sing song might start up. Well last night one of three brothers started a song. When he was finished the second brother sang a song. This put the third brother under a bit of pressure to sing a song so he felt he has no choice so he eventually sang a song too.

There you go, Synergy!

1 brother singing + 1 brother singing = 3 brothers singing. 1 + 1 =3!

Now how to apply that to the business world without resorting to blackmail is anyones guess.

Lucas is two but some ground rules have been laid out already as to what I cannot buy him for Christmas this year:

1. A model Tie Fighter.
2. A model Millenium Falcon or indeed anything related to Star Wars.
3. Anything to do with Star Trek.
4. Anything to do with Stargate.
5. A new MacBook.
6. Anything to do with guns, weapons and the military in general.
7. Anything that is alive.
8. Anything that was once alive.
9. A domain name (not until he is 10 at least so I’m told but it’s too late already!)
10. A Playstation 3.
11. Grand Theft Auto IV for PC or Playstation 3.
12. A ride on toy tractor. (Apparently he’s too small)
13. Dinkys and other toy cars. (He has enough already)
14. Anything that makes loud noises and requires batteries.
15. A 1TB external hard disk. (For his baby photos honestly!!)

I guess all that is left is Play-Doh but that’s what I got him for his birthday a few weeks ago. And here was me thinking buying christmas presents for kids was going to be easy.

Can’t wait until he’s older.

Can anyone solve the riddle below? No prizes unfortunately.

Originally came via an email but I Photoshopped™®  it slightly.

It’s Lucas’s second birthday today but as it’s Monday we had a bit of a party for him yesterday instead. He’s a happy little man with his new tricycle!

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Apparently it is according to a 419 mail I got this morning. This one is quite a good effort however it does have some fundamental flaws. It begins thus:

This letter is not intended to cause any embarrassment in whatever form, rather
is compelled to contact your esteemed self, following the knowledge of your high
repute and trustworthiness.

I am David Garfield, Chief Campaign Officer of the PRINCIPAL CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE
OF DEMOCRATS: OBAMA 2014 INC ID: C00411934.

The flowery language at the start is *the* hallmark of a 419 but this time around the grammar is rather good and punctuation is aslo good with no rampant capital either until you get to the bit that mentions Obama and the official looking code numbers.

So why are the Democrats in the U.S. sending me advance fee fraud mails? Aha! Here we go:

I write to seek your sincere assistance in transferring the sum of £10M GBP 10
million Pounds sterling.

Stirling? From the Democrat party in the United States? Surely that should be dollars? And where did they get the 10 million from in the first place?

I discovered my office has some excess funds amounting too 10 million Pounds
recovered from donations and grants from democrats around the world during our
election campaign and pleas for support for our incumbent president Barack
Hussein Obama, According to plans, The excess funds was to used in clearing
debts owed by Mrs Hillary Clinton during her campaign programs,I taught there is
a better way of expending this funds.I want this money to be used to alleviate
the poverty and sufferings of children in Iraq and Africa and donate to Charity
organizations around the world.

Yeah right! Unfortunately what started out gramatically quite decent has started to break down slightly with all this philanthropic talk. Anyway why not just give it to charity? Why should I launder the money?

My plea to you is that you assist me get this funds out of the United Kingdom
where it is presently lodged safe and for your assistance ,you will have a fair
percentage of the total money and all investments shall be under your
supervision.

This simple transfer process could be arranged in less than 3 working
days.Ensure your response is sent to my personal e-mail address xxxxxxx@gmail.com

I sent a mail to gmail alright. Straight to Google’s abuse department to get that mailbox shutdown along with another gmail account used in the signature. BTW the signature itself is pretty funny. I wonder if the 419er did this intentionally? Probably not. Anyway note the UK telephone number:

419 Rating – 5 out of 10

It did arrive claiming to be from a democrats.com mail address and started out quite excellent but left itself down badly in the plausability stakes with references to Obama and Hillary Clinton. And of course claiming to be from the Democrats while using gmail accounts, references to Stirling currency and a U.K. mobile telephone number mean that I can only give it 5 out of 10.

Out if interest, the mail itself arrived from a mail server in Indonesia and was sent using IMP webmail which is part of the Horde Application Framework.

As illnesses go the flu is a nasty bugger. I haven’t had it myself in years as I used to get regular vaccinations at work. So for the first time in years and for exactly a week now I have been freezing cold one minute, roasting the next. I’ve been shaking, coughing and wheezing. Unable to stay awake, unable to to go to sleep and finally one entire week later I’m starting to feel a little bit better.

I haven’t left the house in that length of time either. I wonder if much has changed?

Anyway back to the flu. I have no idea if it was swine flu or not as I didn’t bother with any doctors or health professionals because I simply cannot afford them. A visit to the G.P. and a prescription would cost me in and around €100 which is half what I have to spend per week. Ironically of course I haven’t spent anything in the past week anyway other than getting someone to buy me the odd packet of cigarettes so I might have as well got myself checked out.

I’ve already mentioned alternating between being roasting hot and freezing cold, so what else can you expect? Absolutely aching bones and joints for a start. My hips were so sore I could barely walk at times. This started to fade after about the fourth day. Another thing is the dizziness. At times while sitting it was like the whole room was spinning around. Close your eyes and it felt like being in a washing machine. A week later and I’m still having dizzy spells and pounding headaches although not as frequently thankfully. I’ve discovered that lying down on my right hand side seems to stop the dizziness for some reason. It doesn’t work if you lie on your left

Oddly one thing that hasn’t been affected is my appetite. On the contrary I have been constantly hungry and no amount of food is satisfying. There must be some truth in that “feed a cold, starve a fever” adage.

The worst thing (apart from the suffering of course) is the boredom. Any of you following me on twitter may have read recently about the television falling off the wall, well the second T.V. is constantly tied up by my mother recording bloody soap operas so that ruled that out. Staring too long at a computer screen resulted in a few dizzy spells so that ruled that out as too it ruled out reading for the same reason. Still I’m on the mend at last so time to get through some of the bills and other letters that have been piling up while I’ve been laid up.

I see from a cursory glance that college are looking for €1,500 that I don’t have for a registration fee so I guess I will be finishing up there next week and my NCT is due as well.  I guess I should have stayed in bed.

The end of October is almost here but despite the evenings getting cooler and the nights closing in, our garden is still in bloom. This afternoon Lucas was pointing at something on the floor and it turned out to be a Ladybird. I picked it up and he was fascinated watching it crawl around my hand. I decided to return it to the garden and took the following shot:

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I was absolutely delighted with the colours. But regular readers may know that this is not the first time I have been playing with macro photographs in the garden. I have also taken this bumblebee and another macro of water drops on a flower.

Photo of Lucas in the garden yesterday. I asked him to smile but I think he overdid it a bit!

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