I don't know if it's the caffine kicking in or what, but I'm making headway. I've determined that for some reason, the password() server function was causing the problem. I solved this problem by setting my field type in my table to varchar(16) (it was set to a length of 15) and set the attributes to BINARY.
I'm assuming that the field type needed to be a length of 16 because of the BINARY attribute, but I really don't understand the PASSWORD() function all that well. Can anyone explain a little better than the book(s) I have so I can understand the why's and wherefore's? Is it really THAT secure or is it just a "warm fuzzy"?