We're having amusing trouble with a particular piece of software, mainly because it was written by consultants. And the thing about consultants is the things they write just have to work. They won't be sticking around to maintain 'em, so consultant-generated programs are not necessarily the, er, best-written sorts of things.
Anyway, the main problem is that the consultants wrote these pieces of software and they're, er, sort of no longer around here to make improvements. They came, they saw, they programmed, they left. The other pieces of software that are supposed to work with their programs, of course, have changed since then. This creates interesting problems when the behavior of the programs isn't quite consistant with what's expected from everything else...
We do have one person at our company (who I'll just call Wonder Boy) working on the program, but this will take time, and much surl will no doubt happen in the mean-time. I'd take a look myself, but Wonder Boy says the interior of this program is so bad even he's having trouble with it, so I guess I'll leave it be. (As a note, never let the company you work for hire anyone who's demonstratably smarter than you are. More qualified is fine. More diligent is fine. Super-genius is not fine. It'll make you feel inadequate.)
As a side note, never hire consultants, either. It's never a good idea to trust essential bits to people who aren't going to have to stick around and deal with the results of their coding. The only people who hire consultants are companies who can't find any schmucks to do the job as real employees. In other words, extremely desperate companies in towns where anyone with a real information technology background and a brain in their heads would be fleeing to greener pastures. Like, for example, Tallahassee.
Hey, wait a minute...
On the whole, it wasn't anything spectacular, but it was watchable, only contained one or two "Hey, WAIT a minute..." moments, and only contained one spot of wooden acting (in one place, a shuttle pilot suddenly comes under fire from aliens on the ground. I can think of a lot of things I'd say at that moment, but a sort of monotone "oh. hell." isn't among them. But he was a disposable extra, so it wasn't that big of a deal.)
Hmmm. Twelve more episodes to go, unless someone at TNT relents and decides to shell out for the remaining 4.5 seasons... Which is rather unlikely, really.
And Vegeta is good to his word. Vegeta takes the Dragonball, and, to Krillan's great surprise, leaves the two alone and flies off. But not, of course, without making a speech about how he's now got all seven Dragonballs and will now become immortal, conquer the universe, etc, etc.
Krillan and Bulma sulk for a moment before realizing that their last hope is Gohan, who's been off pilfering one of Vegeta's Dragonballs. If Gohan can hold onto that last one, Vegeta won't have all seven.
Goku (Heroicus Maximus), meanwhile, finds his stash of Plot Device Beans and is restored to full strength. Those Japanese viewers must have real good memories, because the last time the beans came up was, um, like ten or eleven episodes ago. Yowza.
Frieza (Totalicus Badassicus), meanwhile, is hanging out with his remaining three flunkies on Namek, and realizes that Zarbon must have failed in his task... time to order reinforcements. None of this sending gradually-increasing strength villains and such, Frieza orders his flunkies to call the home base and order up his elite troops, the Ginyu. The Ginyu are apparently powerful enough to make Frieza's minions, no wimps themselves, rather twitchy, and Frieza gets annoyed and vaporizes a minion who fidgets too much when the Ginyu are mentioned.
We're now treated to plenty of shots of the interior of Frieza's home base on another planet, which is pretty much wall to wall with muscle-bound bad-asses. The five members of the Ginyu force are loaded into their pods (they're so bad-assed that they're in shadow the whole time, so we never get a good look at them) and are lauched out into space. Yowza.
Gohan (Ruggus Rattus), meanwhile, is flying happily along when he senses Vegeta and lands quickly to find a good spot to cower in. Vegeta, however, senses Gohan as well, and pulls up short to take a look around. When Gohan refuses to give in to Vegeta's jibing, Vegeta just threatens to blasticate the entire area, which finally draws Gohan out (though not before he hides the Dragonball). Vegeta gets distracted by the simple pleasures of smacking around someone who can't possibly defeat him, and after a brief chat he flies off, leaving Gohan mildly battered but alive, and also without discovering the Dragonball.
King Ki (Gianticus Cretinus) is having tea and watching Those Three Guys train when he senses the Ginyu force on its way to Namek... King Ki goes all twitchy; apparently even someone firmly ensconced within the next dimension is scared of the Ginyu. Those must be some serious bad-asses...
Vegeta arrives at the place where the last Dragonball is stashed... and can't find it. It doesn't take him long to piece things together, and boy, is he ever pissed. Vegeta's surl shatters the surrounding terrain as he roars back the way he came, this time no doubt not intending to be quite so merciful...
Gohan meets up with Krillan and Bulma, and the three, no doubt realizing they're going to be in deeeep trouble soon, flee bravely and swiftly away.
Goku, meanwhile, is starting to get an almost cartoony mass of muscles from all his 100-G working out. Yowza.
Of course, those darn Ginyu can kick everyone's asses. Whups.
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