Update:
Installed Panther. No dice. I do get to submit bug reports now.
Switch to 160 kb/s with no VBR. No dice.
Switch to 128 kb/s no VBR. Got further down the CD (17 tracks out of 66 instead of 5/66 were ripped succesfully), but it still crashed. Am I "spamming" Apple with all of these bug reports?
Put CD in my Linux box, installed Grip, installed LAME, rip/encode was successful at 160 kb/s VBR. Took 30 minutes. Sigh.
I'll have to listen more closely to hear the fan if/when it comes on. Where is the processor on this thing? Upper left corner (near the screen)?
PS: Expose is neat. It does solve my window management issues.