Cursor only focuses on window when I plug/unplug mouse

[Dastweeper]

I'm about at the end of my rope here.
I'm still rather new to Linux in general, and was getting a bit annoyed with kubuntu. When it froze up and corrupted a critical file, I decided that I'd give Mint a try. So, after a few hours of finally getting the setup working, I start it up from the LiveCD, and like what I see. After installing, though, I run into two major issues: First, my wifi magically stops working, (I'll hash that out later) and second, and critically, my touchpad (I'm on an acer laptop) stops fuctioning. Annoyed, I plug in a USB mouse. Now, it works fine. Unless i want to change windows that is. If I want to do that, I must hover the mouse over what I want to switch to, unplug my USB mouse, plug it back in, then I can click on it and it will react.
Call me crazy, but this seems hardly ideal. Any help?
My setup is:
Mint 12
on a 32 bit Acer 5735z laptop.
If you need more info, i can give it.

Any assistance would be helpful, as I am about to eviscerate the next living being that enters the room out of pure rage.

[Dastweeper]

Sorry for my pestering, but this is kind of a major problem, and I can't seem to find anything even closely relating to this. Maybe it's a driver issue? My wifi and touchpad aren't functioning either, so maybe a few essential drivers are missing?
Any help at all would be appreciated.