Random overheating/drained battery?

Question

i got my mbp about a month ago
and in the past couple of weeks ive had an odd event happen to me twice
i know that i had shut down my computer last night
but when i opened it up late that night, it was extremely hot (as in, it was not pleasant to leave my fingers on it) and wouldnt start up
it had been plugged in all day, so the battery was charged
i decided to unplug it for the night (it didnt seem like it could hurt, just to let it be shut down all night, no power going into it, let it cool down)
when i went to start it up this morning, it wouldnt
i plugged it in again, and then it started up
once it was done starting up, it said that it had had to restart b/c mac os x had quit unexpectedly
i clicked report to see more.....and nothing ever came up
also, the battery was down to 0%
i have it set for better energy settings...bluetooth was on...but still..
i dont know a lot of the technical stuff with computers
but i know that this is not cool

Answer 1

When you put the MBP to sleep, e.g. by closing the lid, watch the light near the latch. It will come on and stay steady for 20 seconds or so (depending on how much RAM is installed), and the computer has not yet gone to sleep. Instead, it is saving the state of your memory to the hard drive. When that's finished, the computer will go to sleep and the light will start pulsating.
The advantage of saving the contents of memory to the hard drive is that even if the battery were to be exhausted while sleeping, the computer can be awakened without losing any memory contents by plugging it in and pressing the Power button. This also allows you to change to a fresh battery while the computer is asleep and not plugged in, without losing the state of memory. After a battery change press the Power button and all your open applications, files (even unsaved files) are just as before you put the computer to sleep.
But do not assume the computer has gone to sleep until the light starts pulsating!
A sleeping computer can be awakened by several things. If you place a sleeping computer in a carry bag and some object such as a book presses the lid hard enough to activate a key, it's wake-up time. That's a Bad Thing, because there's little air space and the computer can get very hot.
It's a good idea to select System Preference > Bluetooth and choose the Settings tab. Make sure that the option "Allow Bluetooth devices to wake this computer" is unchecked. Reason: if you have a Bluetooth mouse and/or keyboard in your carry bag it can easily get jostled and wake up your computer. You can wake the computer up by opening the lid, and then your Bluetooth mouse and keyboard will work.
And for good measure I turn off in Energy Saver Options the option to restart the computer after a power failure. Perhaps the MBP is plugged in and I've got Energy Saver set for it to never sleep. I don't want a power failure to trigger a restart. And sometimes electrical power goes on and off rapidly; it's not a good idea to be automatically restarting in that circumstance.
PowerMac DC 2.3, 5 GB RAM, 2 500 GB HD   Mac OS X (10.4.7)   MacBook Pro 2.0, 2 GB RAM, 7200 rpm 100 GB HD