A cold!

Sunday night a cold hit me like a ton of bricks! (I hardly got any sleep.) I haven't been doing much for the last three days.  On the other hand, Father got home from the hospital just before then.

Thursday I went to the opera rehearsal at the Anglican church north of Yonge & St. Clair. (I'd missed the previous week's practice because I didn't get the email saying where the new location was!)

Sunday was the Classic Book Club, where we discussed Boccaccio's Decameron.  It was pretty lively.  I'd finished the book just a day before, and now I'm reading Modern Italy:  A Short Introduction for my History Meetup.

Monday I had to miss the memoir session and an Organizers Meetup, but they both got cancelled anyway because of the snow!

I'm over the worst of my cold.  I should be able to keep my appointment with Dr. Hassan tomorrow.

Last night on Youtube I found Shel Silverstein's song "You're Always Welcome at Our House," which I remember hearing in my childhood.  So sue me, I like sick songs! (I must be repressed...) Silverstein had quite a range, also writing "The Unicorn" and "The Ballad of Lucy Jordan," as well as children's books like The Giving Tree. That one's a classic that can be interpreted in a thousand ways...

Crisis

My father went to the hospital yesterday for pneumonia treatment.  But he should be back in a few days.

Sunday I went to a Singing Meetup at the Carlaw Centre.  I just missed the St. Clair streetcar, then I just missed the College streetcar, and I was almost half an hour late! (And it was brass monkey weather too.) But I liked the new group.  We were singing "When I Fall in Love," "Singing in the Rain" and "Move It on Over." Afterward the streetcar wasn't working so I waited twenty more minutes in the deep cold before going north to catch the Pape bus.

Later that Sunday was my Reading Out Loud Meetup. The topic was religious writing, so I titled the event "Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition!" There was another Korean woman there, but she's new to Canada and her English isn't so good, so I encouraged her to recite poems like "If No One Ever Marries Me" (I had to explain what "shan't" meant) and "The Village Blacksmith." That's a good way to improve your spoken language.

Monday night I saw Around India With a Movie Camera at the Bloor.  That's a documentary with film footage of British India in the early 20th century, including footage of Mahatma Gandhi.

Some of the Decameron stories are rather cruel comedy.  There's one where Bruno and Buffalmacco make the sap Calandrino think he's found a gem that makes him invisible, and he ends up giving his wife a beating. (That's funny?)

NOTHING LIKE A DAME

"I can't read." "Of course you can't!  No-one has time for it these days"--Being There

Tuesday I saw Nothing Like a Dame at the Bloor.  It's a documentary about Dames Maggie Smith, Joan Plowright, Judi Dench and Eileen Atkins getting together to discuss acting, husbands and lots of stuff.  Tasty talk if you like them.

Wednesday night the History Meetup screened The Battle of Britain. (I was seeing it for the second time.) It's pretty hard to dramatize a battle that was essentially a long sequence of skirmishes.

Tonight I saw Hal at the Bloor.  It's a documentary about near-great director Hal Ashby, who made some of the most interesting movies of the '70s but couldn't get anywhere in '80s Hollywood.  A pretty sad story, really.  One can't help noticing how prophetic his Being There was, with brainless Peter Sellers ending up with people deciding to make him President--a minute later there's footage of Ronald Reagan! (Though Reagan was far less benign...)

The anime The Rose of Versailles has got to the point of the Diamond Necklace Scandal that tainted Marie Antoinette a few years before the French Revolution broke out.  I know a bit about that because when I was a kid we had the Classics Illustrated comic of Dumas' historical novel The Queen's Necklace!

Last week I finally got past Level 1893 of Candy Crush Saga, and now I've reached Level 1900!

Computer phone

"The nights being short and the delight great and it being now, though they thought it not, near day, they fell asleep without any covering, so overheated were they what with the weather and what with their sport, Caterina having her right arm entwined about Ricciardo's neck and holding him with the left hand by that thing which you ladies think most shame to name among men"--Decameron

This evening Anne told me how to set up a phone through my computer so I won't have to use the family cellphone!

Friday afternoon I saw the documentary Maria Callas at the Bloor.  It's a documentary about opera diva Maria Callas centered on her own quotes.

Tonight I saw 54, another Bloor documentary, this time about Studio 54, the disco that became the center of the New York "scene" for a couple of years in the late '70s before being undone by drug busts, tax evasion prosecutions and general hubris.

I've got to the sixth day of the Decameron, with stories about people saving their own skin through clever replies.

Meetups

Monday night I went to the Celtic Culture Meetup, where we discussed Julius Caesar's wars of conquest in Gaul.  I brought my Latin text and they were impressed that I knew the language.

Last night I went to the Intellectual Meetup at the Bampot Tea House.  Pam and my Korean friend Hongmin were both there! (We discussed "polarization" in today's politics.)

Tonight I went to the Book Swap Meetup at Paupers. (We were focusing on historical writing.) I picked up a copy of Norman Mailer's early novel The Barbary Shore.

I'm now in the fourth section of Decameron, where the stories are about unsuccessful love.

John has been tearing the dining room apart, so we've had to eat dinner in the living room a few times.

I finally fulfilled my New Year's resolution and baked bread again! (It was whole wheat.)

History Meetup

"I want you to be happy, but I don't want you to be happy for me, because I'm not... happy"--Fantastic Beasts:  The Crimes of Grindelwald

Wednesday night's History Meetup was a big success! Fourteen people showed up despite the cold weather. Walid served as moderator, preventing people from talking too long, which was a big help.

The subject was Celtic civilization, and in addition to the main book, Blood of the Celts, I'd also glanced at The Discovery of Middle Earth, about the Celt's geographical sophistication that led to siting their towns and settlements along north-south meridians and other straight lines.  And I brought one of my French comic books about Asterix the Gaul, and there was a Korean girl there called Hongmin who's also a fan of them! (She's very friendly.)

Thursday night I saw Peter Bogdanovich's Buster Keaton documentary The Great Buster:  A Celebration at the Bloor.  I haven't been there in a while--I still haven't used up my free popcorn coupons.  But they're showing some "Best of 2018" features this month so I expect I'll be there again.

Tonight I saw the Fantastic Beasts sequel The Crimes of Grindelwald at Canada Square.  Mildly entertaining. (As the title villain, Johnny Depp reminded me of Johnny Rotten!)

Just saw Nami's backstory on One Piece. Oda Eyichiro isn't a good storyteller, he's a great storyteller!

New Year's

So another year has begun. What are my resolutions?  I think I'll start baking bread again, which I lapsed in over a year ago.  And I'll try to wait to read each day's new online comic strips in the morning, instead of doing it after midnight of the night before.

Wednesday night I saw the new Mary, Queen of Scots movie.  Meh.  With this sort of production they try too hard to have an original take on history. (Did England really have a Negro ambassador to Scotland?  Did Elizabeth I really have a Chinese Lady in Waiting?) Saoirse Ronan was pretty as ever in the title role, while Margot Robbie's Elizabeth bore a curious resemblance to Rufus Sewell.

I've started watching the anime The Rose of Versailles online. That one's about a girl in 18th-century France whose father wanted a boy, so he named her Oscar and brought her up to be a male heir.  Now she's a teenage soldier appointed to guard the newly-arrived Marie Antoinette.  It was made back in 1979 so the animation isn't of the best quality, but it's still fairly handsome and imaginative. (It was a big influence on Revolutionary Girl Utena, of course.)

Speaking of anime, One Piece gets more and more complex and fascinating.  I think my favorite character is Nami, the girl navigator with a practical eye for matters like food and money and planning. (It helps that I like maps too.) The story arc just now involves a high-class restaurant started by a retired pirate in the middle of the sea!

I'm finally getting serious about unsubscribing from the email lists that clog my inbox. (I originally got on so many because I liked being linked to E-petitions.)

Boccaccio's DECAMERON

Seward: "In my opinion--" Lincoln: "Which I always listen to..." "Or pretend to." "...with all three ears"--Lincoln

"Why did you hit me?" "Just because!"--One Piece

Wednesday night the History Meetup screened Steven Spielberg's Lincoln, which I was seeing for the second time.  Sally Field as Mrs. Lincoln reminded me of my own mother. (Debi mentioned that she's started reading these blogs.  That makes two fans!)

I've started reading our translation of Boccaccio's Decameron.  It's written in 17th Century English but still pretty readable. (Boccaccio's account of the Black Death in Florence is unforgettable!) There's something pretty modern about it.

Had lunch with John Snow at the Schnitzel Hub on Thursday.

Finished the third season of Sailor Moon, though I'm afraid Animelinkz may have missed one episode when they posted it online.  I've started the anime One Piece, which looks promising.  It's about a young man made of rubber who plans to become a pirate king.  It has something of the Dragon Ball spirit. (There's some McGuffin all the pirates are searching for, sort of like the seven Dragon Balls.)

I've moved the other big bookcase into my room and mostly filled that one too.  My bed currently has an extra mattress that was on the bed in the room that's being renovated! (It feels like the Princess and the Pea.)

The People's Vote

https://www.gocomics.com/9chickweedlane/2018/12/07

I was thinking about this People's Vote movement in Great Britain. (I'm talking about it here because there isn't enough room on Twitter.) If you ask me, they should have a plebiscite with four options:

1.  Leave the EU by the terms of the agreement the government negotiated.

2.  Reject the agreement, and leave the EU without any agreement.

3.  Reject the agreement, and don't leave the EU until a new agreement is concluded.

4.  Don't leave the EU at all.

Eleven people said they were coming to today's Reading Out Loud Meetup, but I was the only one who showed up. Someone tell me what I'm doing wrong! (If I knew of more reliable people, I'd invite them...)

Despite that, I've been in a pretty good mood the last few days due to being busier than usual.  Friday I went to an Employment & Social Services office near Church & Jarvis to submit the form that'll give me an ODSP discount on TTC fares. (For me, finding a new place in the city is always a fun adventure!) And yesterday I moved one of those big bookcases into my room and filled most of it with the books that are taking up so much space. (Which meant moving some existing furniture to make room for it.)

I've finished watching the original Dragon Ball series online.  I don't dare take up Dragon Ball Z for some time yet!

One of the comic strips I follow, 9 Chickweed Lane, did a story the other week about a character who wanted to audition to play Jack Point (the clown who loses the girl) in a local production of Gilbert & Sullivan's The Yeomen of the Guard.  That piqued my curiosity, and I went on Youtube and found an exquisite clip of a Proms performance of a famous duet from that show! (That's it above.) Unlike with other strips I can only post a link to this one.

Moving furniture

I'm now writing this in my own room!  Yesterday Moira and I were moving furniture out of what used to be my room so John can tear out the walls and stuff.  (The biggest challenge was emptying the two big bookcases and toting the books out.) So I moved the old desk into my room and set up my computer on it.

I've moved most of those books into my room and I'm thinking of bringing in those bookcases too. (There's some older furniture now in my room that can take their place in the old room.) When John's finished, Moira can move her computer into that room from the living room so she can use it in the middle of the night with no fear of disturbing Father, who's now sleeping in the living room because the sun room got cold.

I've got to the last third of the third season of Sailor Moon, and the story's improving.  The first part moved pretty slowly, with one pure heart after another turning out not to have the talismans.  Finally the talismans turned up in the hearts of the three newest sailor senshi, including the newly-arrived Sailor Pluto. (Who's minding the Gate of Time while she visits the 1990s?  And why do I ask questions like that?) And Chibi-Usa met a girl who's the "Messiah" they're all looking for, and happens to be the daughter of the mad scientist we'd only been seeing in shadow! (He resembles a grown-up version of Melvin the dweeb--see above.)

I've started playing Forge of Empires again.  That's the computer game where you take a community from prehistoric times into the 20th century by building homes and industries, conquering provinces and upgrading technologies.

I've finished Blood of the Celts and now it's time to start The Decameron.  I'm also reading an E-book of Esther Samson's Black Country to Red China.  She's a Eurasian who spent her first years in Shanghai, then war came and her mother returned to England with her, where she got evacuated out to a Staffordshire mining household.  Then at age 17 she returned to China as the communists were taking over and started a new life in the People's Liberation Army.  But six years later she had to return to England--don't know the details yet--and became a West Country schoolteacher, rising to the headmistress level.  Her daughter Polly became a writer and married Pink Floyd's David Gilmour, whom she's written lyrics for.  Some stories you couldn't make up!

To bed

"She's not crying because I said she was 41.  She's crying because she is 41!"--On Approval

Saturday John and Kathrine came over and we had Indian food. (The nearby Indian restaurant has a December special!  We'll have to eat it with Donald too.) We ate what was left for the next couple of days, of course.

Yesterday we put The Marriage of Figaro to bed. (Someone brought a chocolate cake.) We got to keep our wigs so Anne may photograph me in my costume after all.  Moira came to the last show.  She said that the music is great--she loved the soloists, who were mostly new--but the plot gets silly in the second half.

This evening Miriam and I went to a Toronto Film Society double bill at Innis Town Hall. They were droll, sharply written British comedies from the 1940s: Clive Brook's On Approval and the Alexander Korda production of Oscar Wilde's An Ideal Husband. (I saw the play at London's Old Vic about twenty years ago!)

It looks like I've finally straightened out my Prestocard account for now. (I paid $100 into it.)

Opening night!

The opera is underway.  Last Thursday we were rehearsing our stage movements again in the church gym.  Then Saturday morning we worked with the soloists. (The chorus parts were done first so we could leave early.) Monday night was the tech rehearsal at the Al Green theatre, then Tuesday was the dress rehearsal.  I got to wear my glasses with my costume, and the bright stage lights got to me.

And tonight was the opening! Someone brought some fudge, and it was addictive!  I finished the Lapham's Quarterly discovery issue, and during our long waits in the green room downstairs I've been reading Blood of the Celts for my History Meetup. (After reading the first chapter, I decided to read the rest in reverse order, first the last chapter, then second-last etc.)

Wednesday night was the History Meetup where we discussed Abraham Lincoln. Dora Keogh was crowded and noisy, so we moved to Timothy's World Coffee on Danforth and Jackman.

It looks like my new Prestocard monthly pass has registered on my online account.  But the TTC machines are still rejecting the card! (I'll have to phone them tomorrow.)

I'm now watching an online Geeknight series where two guys discuss that anime Revolutionary Girl Utena episode by episode.  Their analyses are as long as the original episodes, but fascinating.

I've given up those Facebook games Farmcliff and Golden Frontier.  I started the same company's Cloud Kingdom, but probably won't continue with it.

Ratzafratz!

George H.W. Bush, after winning the 1988 election through a nasty campaign emphasizing Willie Horton and the Pledge of Allegiance: "No hard feelings.  It was all in a generous spirit of competition." (Do the American people know when they're being insulted?)

I was late ordering the new monthly pass for my Presto card. (The opera's been distracting me...) Last night I tried to order it, but kept getting a message that my credit card needed verification.  Funny it worked OK last month.  The message also showed a toll-free number which I called and started to get somewhere, but then our service provider (the well-named Fido) cut me off!

Today I tried to call again. There was a message at the start estimating that my call would take five minutes, but I ended up waiting twenty minutes before the phone's batteries went dead! (The thing we plug the phone into to keep it charged, it turned out, had itself been unplugged from the outlet...) Tonight I tried again, but the message said I could expect a 30-minute wait. Meanwhile, I can't even open my Presto account.

I haven't been in the best mood the last couple of days.  Only two people besides me came to discuss The Wizard of Oz Sunday, though Debi brought an interesting-looking annotated edition  that I should read someday.  I was going to watch episode 138 of the subtitled Dragon Ball, but couldn't open the Anilinkz connection, so I watched the dubbed version, which isn't nearly as good! (I saw the subtitled version today.)

And the news is full of toadying to the memory of the first President Bush, one of the biggest weasels to occupy the Oval Office--and competition is strong!  My favorite GHWB quote came after an American cruiser shot down an Iranian airliner over the Persian Gulf in 1988. (Is it really a coincidence that terrorists blew up an American airliner over Scotland just six months later? But I digress.) The then-Vice President said: "I don't care what the facts are!" Think about that one a bit--Orwell lives.  

I also remember a 1989 editorial in the neoliberal British newspaper The Guardian contending that the President "seems to be more liberal than the policies he espouses." So he's just an enabler rather than a believer, see?  Scant consolation...

Oh well, the opera opens this Thursday.

This Blessed Plot, This Earth, This Realm

Sunday was Reading Out Loud Meetup.  The topic was British writing so  titled the event "This Blessed Plot, This Earth This Realm."  I read the opening passages of Thomas Hardy's Return of the Native and David Lodge's Nice Work (my shrink likes David Lodge).  Our other reading included Kipling's "Harp Song of the Dane Women" and W. Somerset Maugham's "The Verger." There was a British guy there with a lot to say--too bad I'm terrible at remembering names.  I like events where we don't just read texts but talk about them too!

Wednesday night I went to another Organizers Meetup, and met some more new people.

Thursday night we got the chorus staging straight for The Marriage of Figaro in the gym section of St. Matthew's. (I have the music down cold by now.)

Just today Miriam and I went to see the Lego mural people are assembling outside Union Station.  She likes talking with me a lot.

I've started watching online the third season of Sailor Moon, which I've never seen before.  There are two new sailor senshi, Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune, who come across as butch and femme. This time the monsters are out to steal pure hearts to find talismans or something...

I reached a dead end in that Golden Valley game, so I quit.  Now I've started the new games Farmcliff and Gold Frontier, both of which remind me of the Zynga game Frontierville, which I used to enjoy greatly.

Geometric fun

I was doing some geometric figuring a few days ago.  Zero dimensions:  a point is a point.  One dimension:  a segment has two end points.  Two dimensions:  a square has four sides, with eight points coming together in twos to make four corners.  Three dimensions:  a cube has six faces, 24 segments coming together in twos to make twelve edges, and 24 points coming together in threes to make eight corners.

If you put all this together you can see a pattern:

Points      1     2     2*4/2=4     4*6/3=8     

Segments        1     4                4*6/2=12

Squares                  1                6

Cubes                                       1

Total         1     3     9                27

Horizontally, the number of points are exponents of two. But if you look at the diagonal lines upper left to lower right, you'll see a constant one, then a progression of even numbers, then the number to the left multiplied by the even number below and divided by two, then the same but divided by three, then four and five and so on.  And notice the total for each column:  exponents of three!

It follows that you'd get the following numbers for a tesseract and further dimensions. (Can't visualize it, but I can calculate it!)

8*8/4=16     16*10/5=32     32*12/6=64

12*8/3=32    32*10/4=80    80*12/5=192

6*8/2=24     24*10/3=80     80*12/4=240

8                    8*10/2=40     40*12/3=160

1                    10                   10*12/2=60

*                     1                    12

*                      *                    1

Total: 81          243               729

But then I thought about triangles, tetrahedra (four faces) and tetrahedral tesseracts!  It's the same for zero and one dimension, but then it gets different.

2*3/2=3     3*4/3=4     4*5/4=5

3                3*4/2=6     6*5/3=10

1                4                 4*5/2=10

*                1                 5

*                                   1

Total     7     15            31

This time, instead of 1, 2, 4, 8... the top row is 1, 2, 3, 4... Instead of 2,4,6... the first diagonal line is 2,3,4...  And the total is exponents of two minus one!

I suppose I could also do this for pentagons and docedahedra (twelve faces) and dodecahedral tesseracts and beyond, and even for the other Pythagorean solids: triangles and octahedra (eight faces), or triangles and icosahedrea (20 faces). This stuff fascinates me.

THE HAPPY PRINCE

"I've suffered a broken heart, but hearts are made to be broken.  That's why God sent sorrow into the world..."--The Happy Prince

Wednesday I saw theRevolutionary Girl Utena movieAdolescence Apocalypse (for the second time) on Youtube.  It's a rhapsodic mess, which gets bizarre in the last part when Utena gets transformed into a car that Anthy races into the outside world! (Nanami only appears briefly, alas, in her bovine form.)

At Thursday night's opera rehearsal, we did some more acting exercises.  I pretended to put a pet mouse down Heather's back!

Yesterday I went to Wal-Mart and bought a new pair of pants, new slippers and a new tee and polo shirt. (I also got some bulk peanuts!) I'm finally wearing my winter boots now, what with the snow.

Today I saw Rupert Everett'sThe Happy Prince, about Oscar Wilde's struggling last years, with Anne and her friend Javeed at the Carleton. Bitterly compelling.

1920: THE YEAR THAT MADE THE DECADE ROAR

"Neither race had won, nor could win, the [First World] War.  The War had won, and would go on winning"--Paul Fussell, quoted in 1920:  The Year That Made the Decade Roar

"We're all trapped in our coffins"--Revolutionary Girl Utena

Friday night the History Meetup discussed Poland. There were ten people there! (One guy knew a lot about World War II aircraft.)

Sunday afternoon I visited Giuseppe, my former singing teacher, for the first time in ages.  I'd tried a few times recently, but this time he was actually in!

The other day I finished watching the series Revolutionary Girl Utena on Youtube.  It has a superb ending, reminiscent of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. (Watch the clip above through to the end of the credits!) I have a feeling people will be talking about that show for centuries...

Today I went to Deer Park library and borrowed Eric Burns' 1920:  The Year That Made the Decade Roar. (It's a large print copy, like books for children.) The 1920s was a more complex time than people often assume.

The cold weather has arrived and I'm finally wearing my long johns and furry cap.

Fundraising

Sunday afternoon was my opera group's fundraiser at the Columbus Center. (Tatiana had a cute purple thing in her hair!) On the way home I took the bus to Lawrence West station only to see signs saying that the subway along that line had been replaced by shuttle buses.  So I waited for a bus to come, but none did.  Finally I figured out that the subways were running again, and I got home rather late. (Should have gone home by the Dufferin bus...)

Monday night the Celtic Culture Meetup discussed William Butler Yeats' poetry.  We recited quite a few poems, and I sang "Down by the Sally Gardens" a cappella!

Tuesday I went to the Royal Winter Fair.  It's the closest I get to visiting the country.

Wednesday night I had dinner with Miriam's Meetup group. We were going to eat at Japango, but that place looked too small and crowded, so we went to Kimchi House instead.

I finished the Lincoln book and returned to the Lapham's Quarterly Discovery issue.

Abraham Lincoln: A Life

Abraham Lincoln (running for office): "If elected, I will be thankful.  If beaten, I can do as I have been doing, work for a living."

I finally finished that book of Polish history, but it turns out that the History Meetup is next Friday instead of today.  Oh well, better early than late! (It could have used better editing: I noticed some spelling mistakes.)

The subject of next month's History Meetup will be Lincoln's America, so I've started reading Thomas Keneally's Abraham Lincoln:  A Life.  That's another book in the Penguin Lives series--like Paul Johnson's book about Napoleon--by the Australian writer who did The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith and Schindler's Ark.  It looks like another good read.

I'm always interested in reading about Lincoln.  I wish my mother were still with us so I could tell her how he "dropped a brick" when he came to someone's door and asked "Is Miss Rodney handy?" ("Handy" could mean at hand, but it could also mean a fast girl...) Or how he came to a party and said, "Oh boys, how clean those girls look!" Mother was interested in Lincoln too, and felt sorry for his unstable wife.

Last night at opera rehearsal we met our stage director for the first time.  She had each of us say his name and something interesting about him:  all I could think of at that moment was how good I am at Candy Crush Saga!  Then she divided us into four groups and had us do exercises like I've done in acting class, like throwing around an invisible ball.  We're going to be human maze rows in The Marriage of Figaro. (I have a feeling it won't be your normal opera production...)

Times change, and we change with them

"Americans can't be whipped!"--How the West Was Won

Today I used our Metropass for the second-last time, went to Shoppers Drug Mart and bought a Presto card. (The last time was later when I went to Ali Baba's and bought falafel wrap takeout.  I've been getting their Tuesday special so often that they're getting to know me there!) Now I'll be able to get an annual subscription and even get the ODSP discount.

While I was at Shoppers Drug Mart I also renewed my Cipralex prescription and had another 20-minute wait.  This time I went to Wells Hill Park and read more of the Polish history book.  I've finally got to the all too exciting 20th century part.

Saturday night I downstreamed the Cinerama western How the West Was Won, a guilty pleasure of mine.  The HD picture was so crisp that I could often see the seams between the picture's three sections! Gregory Peck is amusingly cast against type as the gambler.  George Peppard is so (uncharacteristically) good in the Civil War sequence John Ford directed, and so weak in the rest of the movie, that he's like two different actors! Great musical score by Alex North.  Of course, Jimmy Stewart was too old for Carroll Baker...

Sunday was the Classic Book Club, where we discussed Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.  I argued that Jekyll is actually worse than Hyde:  while Hyde acts evil because it's his nature, Jekyll makes a free choice to turn into someone he knows will do bad things, while maintaining "plausible deniability"!