here's an interesting update:

dad just called and said he changed the master for me so that i could get going as soon as possible this weekend, and he said that when the old one came out, he got a lot of sludgy metallic crap out of the bottom of it. i guess that's caused by a wearing shaft? but he said that it already fells a lot stiffer without being bled, so i'm pretty sure that that was the problem now. i'll know for sure tomorrow night. i really hope it's done. buying that master just stopped me from being able to get the new rotors.