Q. How do I see all that stuff that scrolled by during verbose startup?

A. From the CommandLine:

[localhost:~] you$ dmesg 

Q. I'm stuck at the login screen with no username or password box.

A. Your NetInfo database is corrupted. Boot into single user mode (hold command - s at startup) and restore it.

Q. On boot, my machine hangs for a long time initializing DirectoryServices.

A. Your DNS is probably down/corrupted. If this happens on your Mac OS X Server which you're running as your DNS server, check in ServerAdmin that DNS is really running. If you have an external DNS server, check that it's running, and check your network connectivity. Use the Lookup tab of NetworkUtility to look up a DNS entry that your DNS server ought to know.

Q. I can not get my machine to boot, it crashed in explorer, so following what I think is procedure, I tried to soft boot, didn't work, so I pulled the plug, and now no boot.

A. Depress the on switch for 10 to 20 seconds. , open the "box" (panel on bottom) and depress the ResetButton. Worst case senario, take it in.