that was enough to get me through the script, anyways.

i may have to revisit this afterwards, but let's just finish the update post, first.

so, let me take note of this - i want to revisit the deletion part of the script. while i seem to be stuck with some kind of process running in the background that i can't turn off (something i've noticed on my other machines, as well), i am not technically connected to the internet with this machine anymore (the nic is disabled in the bios) and don't need the kind of scripting i was running previously to avoid spyware intrusions. so, i can turn off most of the script as a troubleshooting step and turn it back on, incrementally, as i stabilize the system.