Thank you for your suggestions. So far, no luck. Following one of the poster's suggestions, I went back to an earlier version of Java (1.4.1) Since the problem occured with Java 1.4.2 ver.2. Below is the thread that crashed (from the crash log).

As far as a conspiracy theory goes, how about the latest version of iTunes deliberately causing the problem to prevent free music downloads?

Thread 1 Crashed:
0 libjvm.dylib 0x947693f8 JVM_Timeout + 0x1018
1 libjvm.dylib 0x94770b04 JVM_DoPrivileged + 0x2ea4
2 libjvm.dylib 0x9477d220 JVM_MonitorNotifyAll + 0xf50
3 libjvm.dylib 0x9472ad14 JVM_GetClassAccessFlags + 0xab4
4 libjvm.dylib 0x9472d544 JVM_MonitorWait + 0x1da4
5 libjvm.dylib 0x9472d2bc JVM_MonitorWait + 0x1b1c
6 libjvm.dylib 0x947e945c JVM_GetClassDeclaredFields + 0x161c
7 libjvm.dylib 0x94818d70 JVM_GetInterfaceVersion + 0x15330
8 libjvm.dylib 0x94813aa8 JVM_GetInterfaceVersion + 0x10068
9 libjvm.dylib 0x948135dc JVM_GetInterfaceVersion + 0xfb9c
10 libjvm.dylib 0x947f447c JVM_IsPrimitiveClass + 0x1fcc
11 libjvm.dylib 0x947e43b0 JVM_GetClassDeclaredMethods + 0x8c0
12 libjvm.dylib 0x947fed6c JNI_CreateJavaVM_Impl + 0x7c
13 ...ple.JavaApplicationLauncher 0x85031a6c startJavaApplication + 0x150
14 ...ple.JavaApplicationLauncher 0x850318e4 _Z14java_main_stubPv + 0x10
15 libSystem.B.dylib 0x900246e8 _pthread_body + 0x28

I can give you the rest of the log, but this is the only part that indicates a crash.

Thank you for your kind assistance.