I'm working with a site, you see, that has grown organically from some minimal, early roots. They had a static help page set, at one point, and some ad banner stuff, et cetera. Someone, at some point, decided, hey, wouldn't it be cool to have a dynamically built help page set? And, look, we've already got this ad banner module that pulls header, description, link, et cetera from our database. Why not modify that to handle the help pages?
"Sure!" reply the programmers, who are, by this point, completely insane. "No problem!"
Later on, I come in.
You see, they want me to help work on a scaled-down version of the site for use with PalmPilots, in other words, modifying versions of all these pages to strip out the crappy graphics and banner ads and all that, so that PalmPilot users don't hunt us down and kill us. Raw text is good enough for me, so I think, hey, no problem. Ha.
I discover they also want me to convert the help pages. Thus begins my descent into hell.
The deepest level is okay. The next level up is okay. The top level, the main help navigation, uses this ad banner thing. It runs an evil query on the database that pulls up all kinds of funky things, and then, it doesn't actualy direct you to the next level down, which would be easy. Oh, no, it's an ad banner program, so it directs you to a click-thru forwarding page, which THEN sends you to the next level down.
"Aiiie," I remark.
Now, this in and of itself wouldn't be so bad, but the production and development databases are different, as someone made some changes at some point and didn't synchronize them. All this makes for a very surly programmer, especially since the guy I'm working with on this has no idea what, precisely, has gone so horribly wrong with our development database.
Still, putting up with this is why us programmers earn such money for sitting around all day in air conditioned rooms.
Heen.
Which ought to be titled "warming up, gradually, towards the ultimate battle, but not particularly quickly".
By this point in the show, the "what has gone before" narration takes up a good two or three minutes, which may explain why so little actually happens.
Goku and Freeza face each other down for a bit. The three Johnny Bench impersonators spend some time commenting on this. In the Next Dimension, King Ki (or Kai or Kaiou, depending) and the three dead guys spend some time commenting on Vegeta's death.
Finally, Piccolo figures out why Goku isn't attacking right off. He's filling time because the writer's on vacation. Er, no, wait, it's because the three Johnny Bench impersonators will get wasted by the fallout from the battle. Piccolo takes Krillan and Gohan off to a safe distance of several miles.
Fighting ensues.
Not a lot happens, except that Freeza and Goku's fight is too fast for anyone but Piccolo to catch more than a blur (which saves on animation budget, we'll admit). It also shatters even more of the battered Namek landscape. Frieza comments on Goku's impressive power level and how none of the other Saiyans were this powerful, and we get a flashback to all the Saiyans Frieza whacked. Or, actually, just the Elite Guard, King Vegeta and Prince Vegeta. Hmm... you know, one of the members of the Elite Guard is... is... not a guy! Yes, non-spiky hair, non-manly build, and earrings! Egads! The Legions of Terror ARE an equal-opportunity employer! Goku, meanwhile, discovers (while hiding in a cloud of dust kicked up by an atomic bomb sized energy blast Frieza threw at him, which, by the way, sapped most of the special effects budget for this episode) that Frieza can't track his energy, because Frieza is just firing blindly into the cloud.
In the Next Dimension, everyone spends some time commenting about how well Goku is doing.
Meanwhile, we get a Bulma Comedy Relief Break, where she finally gives up on ever getting free of this evil planet, only to be hassled back into motion by a horde of Namekian frogs.
Back to the fighting, and Frieza blows a gaping hole in the planet's surface, causing a gigantic eruption of lava. After a bit more fighting, Goku gets knocked into it. Piccolo shows up, out of the blue, wondering what happened to Goku (who is, meanwhile, hanging onto some rocks just above the lava, commenting about how you could get a really nasty heat rash from that stuff). Frieza says he's making a stew in the lava, and would the Namek like to join in? As Frieza gets ready to chuck Piccolo in, There's a burp in the lava, and Goku comes flying out, clutching his rear end and exclaiming "Ye gods! My buttocks are ablaze!" (or something to that affect). Goku recovers, seals up the eruption by sheer force of will, and yells at Frieza to leave the poor, helpless li'l planet out of it.
Next episode, still more kung fu fightin'!
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