Now My Computer's On Its Last Legs

I forget when it happened, maybe a week ago, maybe less.  But I was surfing the Internet at home and then, suddenly, the computer shut itself off.  I thought I didn't catch the battery as it was running low on power, even though I thought I had juiced it up all the way.

So I plug it in, turn it on (everything went fine) ... and I noticed after a while of surfing some more that the battery bar I installed was maxed out.  Hmmm, that's strange.  So I unplug it seeing as there was no need to juice it up.  And I immediately unplugged the computer.

After fiddling with it a few times (overcoming the Launch Repair and Start Windows Normally screens upon boot-up), I noticed when I plugged it in again that the battery plug-in indicator light was unlit -- no green, no amber, just black.  And now it appears that my laptop isn't getting any power from my battery.  Whether it's due to a defective battery, a bad cord, or somehow the guts of my laptop isn't getting energy from a full battery, I don't know.  But it's another sign that my laptop is really, really sick.

And it's getting worse.  I now am having increasing trouble just getting my laptop started up.  It used to be that taking out the battery, holding down the power button, putting the battery back in and turning it on would work just fine.  Not anymore.  I'm typing this at the Mall of America Hooters after spending almost half an hour trying to get this fucking thing working.  It's working just fine now; I just had to take the fucking battery out.  And I don't know if I can turn it on again if I go the coffeeshop in the next hour, like I intend to.

I will say that the night my battery seemed to stop "talking" to my laptop I had put my lap on sleep mode for almost the entire evening, then unplugged it.  Maybe that has something to do with it.  Or, maybe it's a coincidence that putting it in sleep mode for an extended period of time (something I had never done before) happened at the same time my computer malfunctioned even further.

I planned on getting this stupid thing checked out at the Microsoft Store, also here at MOA, but some time when my parents were away so I can use their computer whenever I want.  I now don't know if I can hold out that long.