Also, it's doing this thing where sound still comes out the laptop speakers even though earphones are already plugged in. What's up with that? Anyone? Bueller?

I had this exact same problem last year. It turned out that my headphone jack was physically broken. On some computers this can be fixed by having a computer professional take apart your computer, take out the headphone jack, and replace it. On my computer this is impossible, because apparently Sony Vaio superglues everything together or some such nonsense.

BUT! I got this nifty device from Radioshack, and now I just plug my headphones into a USB port. (The only annoying thing about this is you need to close and re-open programs for it to notice the switch, so if I'm watching a Youtube video on my speakers and then I want to switch to headphones, I need to close Firefox, plug them in, and then re-open Firefox.)

If the problem isn't with your headphone jack, you should try making sure you've downloaded all recent updates (I have Windows Update-- don't know what the deal with Mac is) and un-installing and re-installing your audio driver.

Just be sad that I'm the one explaining this to you, and not
Rejus, the ridiculously hot computer guy at my dad's office...