My awesome laptop is now a craptop.

For quite some time, the battery has been completely drained. It would hold maybe 15-20 minutes of charge, then would rapidly fade and shut off -- almost without warning. I put off getting a new battery and just kept it plugged in most of the time. Usually, there was an outlet within reach so I didn't mind so much.

The barrel on the power adapter was a little bent. Sometimes, I'd have to play with it a little to get it to connect. But it always did so that was no big deal either.

Then suddenly, the adapter stopped working. No adapter plus no battery equals no power. No laptop. No music. No Photoshop. No fun.

So, I bit the bullet and ordered a new battery and a new adapter. I did this at the end of last week, so I had to sweat out the weekend without a laptop. Last night I came home to find that my new goodies had arrived. I plugged it in.

Nothing. Cold. Dead.

I popped in the battery and found that it had about 30 minutes of charge. Which would be no big deal if the adapter worked -- then I could charge it up. No such luck. The little charging icon never appeared.

Just for kicks, I thought I'd try the old adapter once more. I plugged one end into the wall socket, and was bringing the other end toward the computer, when a spark jumped out of it.

Apparently, this thing's been sparking up the inside of my laptop. The computer runs fine when it can get power (like, from the battery). But it seems that either the DC board or the Logic board is shot. A new DC board costs about $100, but a new Logic board will run something like $500-800, making it a pointless purchase. Then there's the labor charges. Normally, I like to try to fix things like this myself, but after perusing the instructions online, I won't be attempting this kind of a fix myself. Nearly every component inside the laptop needs to be carefully removed before the fix can happen.

I'm completely miffed, as you might guess. If it's the DC board, and the labor charges aren't too high, well, I guess I'll have to pony up for that. But if it gets much higher than that, I feel like I should just look into a new laptop. And I simply can't afford the shiny MacBook Pro that I truly want, so I'll have to settle for something less. Something plastic and pedestrian.

At least I know what I'll be spending that "economic stimulus" check on.