practicality

Seriously, guys, this is getting ridiculous. Latest casualty in the ongoing technological death around me? My laptop battery. It was fine a week ago. Then suddenly it could only hold 40% capacity. Now it's saying 'irreparable damage to the battery has been detected'. Nevermind that it was working fine when I went to bed last night, and all I did was run the battery gauge reset (which shouldn't damage the battery, it just syncs the software with the actual charge capacity). And Lenovo US says my battery doesn't actually exist. Lenovo Canada has it - for a nice big $180. I'm going to try running the gauge reset again, but gah.

Also, Creative has some good prices on refurbished mp3 players. Can anyone give any input on buying manufacter refurbished electronics? I'm always super-hesitant about buying used, but I don't have the money for new right now...