Firstly, we have a story (from CNN.com a few days ago, and if it's on CNN.com, it MUST be true, right?) about a fellow who got booted off his high school football team for drug violations, specifically, being a drunken idiot. Supposedly our high-school hero here got caught in a few incidents involving him being drunk off his butt and doing something stupid, including one case of nearly getting himself killed in a DUI thing.
Fine, we think. That sucks, but hey, Darwin in action. This kind of thing goes on all the time.
Here's where the stupidity comes in. The real, impressive stupidity, as opposed to the mere, normal, every-day stupidity.
You see, he's now diagnosed with alcoholism (big surprise), which is, amazingly enough, on the recognized list of official disabilities. So, being a 90's kind of guy, he promptly sued the school in an attempt to get himself reinstated on the football team, stating that the school COULDN'T drop him, because that would be discriminating against his (recognized) disability, namely, the tendency to get drunk.
And the damnable thing is, as the laws are written, he's probably technically right. Frankly, things like this are good for the Republic, as they show us just how stupid things are getting (which will result in either eventual revolution or total apathy instead of the current situation of partial apathy). I mean, c'mon, guys. When you're using disabilities laws to shield yourself from the consequences of your own illegal actions, it's time to start wondering if we've gone just a bit too far with this coddle all the people all the time stuff. There IS such a beastie as too much of a good thing (c.f. the whole 'Political Correctness' rant, in which the good concept of, hey, let's not accidentally insult people if we can help it turned into the mutant suckage of hey, let's gang-bang anyone who says anything even remotely insulting to anyone else, unless they're complaining about white people in which case it's just fine. But that's another story). But if the body politic had an actual functioning brain, I suppose I'd have less to rant about and that wouldn't be any fun.
Meanwhile, our other news item. In China the other day, a random chemical plant administrator was publicly humiliated by being the only schmuck in the entire world whose facility suffered a computer crash from the 9-9-99 bug. Yup, that's right, nobody else on the entire globe had the slightest problem on that date, except for this one poor bastard whose computers crashed and wouldn't come back until the next day. In response, the Chinese government denied everything, and the Taiwanese government set aside an entire day in which everyone on the island would take off from work, stand in the streets, point at the mainland and laugh heartily. Celebration of this event was, unfortunately, spoiled when the island of Taiwan made like Atlantis and sank into the ocean.
Spokesbishops for the Vatican had the following comment on the event - "And God sayeth, hey, dumbass, don't build huge cities in earthquake zones if you can avoid it. Yeah, you in California, you're next, dammit. I'm gonna pop open a big can of Divine Whup-Ass just for you."
More on this as it develops.
Er, yes. All righty then.
Gohan hangs around outside Freeza's flagship, and his new costume and armor make him feel pretty cool, so he engages in a brief bit of daydreaming about 'Gohan: The Most Powerful Fighter In The Universe', and poses a bit. Vegeta interrupts this by wondering what the heck Gohan's doing, then smirks and heads into the ship to take a nap, leaving Gohan alone to guard the Dragonballs.
Meanwhile, Krillan zips towards Guru's.
Vegeta gets into the med-bay, chuckles a bit at the unconsious Goku as he considers what fun he'll have eventually disposing of the Saiyan warrior, then nearly suffers a blackout. Deciding he could probably use a bit of rest, Vegeta gets an egg timer, sets it for half an hour, and sits himself down to rest and recover his strength.
Freeza, meanwhile, is still beating on Naihl, but has finally had enough. He's surprised, however, when Naihl starts laughing at him. Naihl decides that he's diverted Freeza long enough, and points out that this whole battle was just a waste of Freeza's time, and by now, the good guys probably have the Dragonballs and the password. Freeza, enraged, puts the pieces together at last and rockets back towards his ship, growing increasingly concerned when he can't contact any of his followers.
Dende, meanwhile, zips along, only to discover a dead body, and panics, thinking it's one of Our Heroes (instead, it's Verter, he who's neck went all bendy-wendy). Realizing the battle here was long over, Dende panics again as he has no idea where Our Heroes are now, and takes off in a random direction. Fortunately, however, he comes upon Krillan, and the two head back to the ship together.
Meanwhile, Gohan sits around, bored and increasingly worried and surly, and almost doesn't notice one of the Dragonballs rolling away. Yes, it's Cap'n Ginyu at work once more, attempting to steal one of the Dragonballs to thwart Our Heroes. Gohan notices, however, and realizes what's going on, despite Cap'n Ginyu the Toad's efforts to look innocent. Only in Dragonball Z could you get the resulting line - "I know you! You're the frog that tried to steal my father's body!"
After chasing the toad off (Cap'n Ginyu's further attempts were thwarted by the appearance of a female toad, which pursued him off into the sunset), Gohan noticed the incoming Krillan and Dende. The three quickly exchanged catch-ups and greetings, and realized that they now had 1) All the Dragonballs, and 2) The Password. Additionally, Vegeta was still asleep (having overslept, despite the mighty egg-timer) and couldn't interfere. So they shuffled the Dragonballs away from the ship so that summoning the Dragon wouldn't wake the Saiyan noble, and proceeded to use the password, although Krillan sensed Freeza incoming.
The sky darkened, and the seas sloshed about, causing Freeza to pull up short, trying to figure out what was going on. The Eternal Dragon (who was much more bad-ass than the Eternal Dragon of Earth) appeared, offering Our Heroes three wishes.
Meanwhile, in the Next Dimension, Piccolo, King Ki, and those other three schmucks whose names I forgot celebrate the success of this little mission and Our Deceased Heroes imminent return to the mortal plane.
And, down on Namek, Krillan and Gohan wasted precious time celebrating over the fact that they get THREE wishes instead of just one.
Oh, and the 'Purunga' thing? Purunga was a Namek word, also the name of the Namekian Eternal Dragon, apparently translating as 'Dragon of Luck', or, more probably, 'Big Damn Dragon'.
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