I was intentionally trying to keep my wondering high-level so as to avoid a bout of SDS (Software Derangement Syndrome), which you've kind of alluded to.

Was "Dungeons and Dragons" an early RPG? I vaguely remember the fervor - if not frenzy - over that decades back, people painting figurines and such. But I was too old for such even *then*, you see....

Well, that's not really true. I probably would have loved it. But at the time it seemed like something only much younger folk gravitated toward, and people my age were beaten to death in childhood for not "acting your age", such that acting my age came "unnaturally naturally" to me.

Okay, I might have exaggerated that last memory just slightly. But not acting one's age was definitely a scorn-able offense back then. So was not sitting up straight with folded hands, not minding one's own business, not leaving one's hands off other peoples' shit, and so on.

And <Deity> forbid you got caught doing something like "accidentally" dropping a coin under a girl in a dress making her way across whatever that raised-set-of-bars playground equipment was called, and time one's roll on the ground just right! >_<

On that now *detestable* image, a scene in "Annie Hall" comes to mind where Alvy is scolded by the classroom teacher for having kissed a girl... "Whadid I do? Whadid I do?!" "You should be *ASHAMED* of yourself!"

(Oh, Woody... I'm so sad/sorry you got taken down by modern day self-righteous fundamentalists....)