Has to be more than a dvd problem...

Lucky me, my warranty expired last week...it's as if they have a button, once your warranty is up...BAM. I kid.
In the year I've had my PB I had to replace the superdrive. It worked fine for a while. I'm talking store bought DVD's. Then after a while dvd's would only start up if I had the pointer over the controller making it stay up. If I didn't the numbers would stay at zero even though it shows up on the desktop and dvd still spins. No error message, only way to remedy is a force quit. That was until two days ago. Now the dvd player won't start unless I have the force quit screen open...Am I crazy or is this really possible...
Also for about the past week all my apps. have been opening very slowly. Yahoo instant messenger I used to open and be on in a matter of seconds...I timed it, now it takes 1min. 13secs. Along with that, my DSL has been slowere than normal. In safari the bar you type in the web address is where you see how far loading of the site is, right? When I first started the bar would really quick load and just be blue...now it goes really really slow and is purple first, if I hit enter it turns blue but still loads slowly...
I don't expect any one person to have all the answers, as I stated earlier my warranty just expired so, any suggestions or anything would be greatly appriciated...thanks... P.S. Am I the only one this has happened to?