HELP! my macbook won't turn on /boot up

i have a 2006 macbook, and its been somewhat temperamental lately...i blame it on being old.
i was using it this morning, totally fine-no problems. then when i starting uploading photos from my camera, it started with the rainbow swirl, continued for 5 or so minutes, and i got impatient and forced my computer off. (held down the power button). (i RARELY do that).
so, now it won't turn back on.
I push the button, it lights up with the greyish screen and the apple, it spins for a bit, (1-2 min, which is NOT normal) the dies.

any ideas??

Boot from your OS X System Disc 1 by popping the disc in, turning the machine on and pressing and holding the C key.

Once it boots, click through the dialog boxes until the menu bar appears. Open Disk Utility from the Utilities menu and then run a Verify/Repair Permissions and Verify/Repair Disk. Once that's done, report back and let us know how it goes.

That ain't old ~ my original LC is old with 8MB of memory and a huge 128MB hard drive!

Avoid hitting that power button ~ only use it for extreme emergencies. And after you have done what cwa107 recommends, be prepared for a new hard drive. Going on five years is a lot of work for a 2.5" hard drive.