Got past mem problem only to hit a timeout problem

I'm working on a local installation, almost empty database (only new superuser created, no content or anything.)

As per another support thread on this, I added this on top of the wordpress import file, and got past the out of memory problem.

ini_set('memory_limit', -1);

"Fatal error: Maximum execution time of 60 seconds exceeded in C:\Program Files\xampplite\htdocs\drupal-5.8\includes\database.mysql.inc on line 153"

I tried this with two different xml files, one of which has regular single and double quotes substituting for those dang curly quotes that wordpress usually inserts, since they also, according to another thread, seem to create a problem here. Didn't make a difference.

I really need to get this done for a client site. Any help would be GREATLY appreciated. WP version is 2.2.1. I'd be happy to send the xml file to you directly, I didn't attach since it's a client file. You can email me at bj at doneinstyle dot com if you need to. Thanks!