I did this recently but for gnome. There are some cool custom splashes at gnome look - maybe there is something similar for KDE too.
Churbleyimyam
This sounds very cool and I'd definitely use it.
Blue pill: I would die of boredom if I had to go back to school for more than a couple of days.
Debian is solid and will come ready with office and web apps. You might want to check out if drivers are available for your printers though. You can always try it out on a live USB.
Try a live USB - you might be surprised how easy and intuitive it is to use now.
Yeah: don't spend 18 hours drinking and taking cocaine.
My distro came with Rhythmbox and I've pretty much just stuck with it. It does podcasts and radio which I appreciate and I can also edit track metadata in it. For playing music from my file browser I use MPV because it's fast.
So what? I have to wait about 5 seconds anyway because I have a slow internet connection. No big deal. 5 seconds of not watching a youtube video is probably good for you.
cherrytree If I could only install one program it would be this,