And I'm on a Mac after a lifetime of PC use, so forgive me for any retardedness.

You'll get the hang of it very quickly! Macs are great. Check out Apple's Downloads pages (http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/) for apps (some are freeware, some are shareware, others are demos, etc, but you should be able to find a good screencapping program there).

Now I'm off to read your recap.

- Soophelia