Damn it, Apple!
Damn it!
I WANT MY MAC TO WORK.
Today I decided to upgrade my powerbook to 10.3. I'd had it at 10.3.4 when I sent it away for service, but Apple rebuilt the machine with 10.2 installed. So I put in the Panther install disks, hit restart, say "okay" and "continue" and "I agree" a few times, then leave it alone. I check back in a while; it's at "Performing Base Install, 29 minutes remaining." Then I take a nap. A two hour nap. When I get back, it's still at "Performing Base Install, 29 minutes remaining." I stare at it in dismay for a while, then give in and hit the power button.
It restarts, ejects the Panther disk, and gives me the "where's the startup disk" icon.
I hit the power button again, and this time I hold down the C key, to get it to boot from cd-rom. It boots to the installer again. I say okay/I agree/continue a few times, then leave it alone while I have a complete and useful conversation with a health insurance customer service representative. When I come back to the mac, it says "Installation was not successful. Please try again."
So I hit restart. It ejects the Panther CD, then goes into an all-too-familiar state: light gray background, dark gray apple logo, spinning gray "working" icon. For a long time.
I pushed the cd back in, waited, then hit the power button. Nothing. I then held down the power button for several seconds, to force it to shut down. And now I'm going to restart and try to install panther again. I'm pretty sure I will spend a few hours this evening on the phone with Apple tech support, though.

It's a bad day for Apple when a call with a health insurance customer service rep is both briefer and less irritating than an OS upgrade.