Oh, come now. There is no need for you to trouble yourself so over my opinions, Teribus. I would answer your diatribe point by point...but to do so, I'd have to be as obsessed with attacking you as you are with attacking me.

And I'm not.

It's perfectly okay with me that you and I have very different lives and utterly different philosophies.

But I will answer one of your questions, regarding the ping pong.

"What is the point of even having rules for the game?"

The rules are precisely what make the game the game, and make it enjoyable to play, and possible to play. You don't have any game without the rules. One doesn't have to keep score to follow the rules, my friend, but one does need the rules to understand how to conduct any given volley until it is ended. Obviously. The fun is in making it as good a volley as possible while it lasts. Each volley is its own complete fun. I've played a lot of ping pong, and I can attest to that. Just playing flat out, volley after volley, without worrying about the score is as great as just sailing a boat, or riding a horse, or any other physical activity. And you do have to know exactly what you're doing in all of them and follow certain general rules in order to do it efficiently and enjoy it.

I have no interest in arranging for more winners and losers, T, none.

I also have no interest in dividing the world up into more archetypal "good guys" and "bad guys" and going off to kill someone over it.

But that's okay. There will always be plenty of people who do have an interest in that, so don't worry about me being some kind of threat that is going to end it all. ;-)

Hitting the ball against a wall, by the way...or against the raised table top on a folding table...is a great way of speeding up your play and improving your technique, but it's not nearly as interesting as playing against another human being.