Is there anything interesting I can do with this older macbook?

I have a black Core 2 Duo/2.16GHz that I had to replace due to battery bloat and a frayed charger. It is currently sitting on my desk running without the battery and with the charger case busted open so I could get enough wire to reconnect things. It works, but it certainly isn't elegant and I'm paranoid that the charger is going to catch fire now that its open. So I was wondering if there was any way to turn this into an interesting project.

I remember reading that macbooks run slower without the battery in them, and this seems to be the case for me, so is there anyway I can hook the battery back up? Can I take the components out of the case and turn it into a permanent desktop? I have a new laptop to replace the old one, but the falling apart macbook does have a new 500GB hard drive that I'm using as a second backup, so I would like to be relatively sure of things working out in the end.

I know this is a shot in the dark, but I would really like to get some more use out of it and have something to tinker with for a while. Thanks.