Well I've done all that I could, or maybe all that I'm willing to do, and I've got nothing. I managed to get Minecraft to work not too long ago (I previously was unsuccessful in patching it) so I figured I must either be a wizard or my computer isn't actually as bad as I have been perceiving it to be.

Get Ubuntu, they said! You can still get your game on, they said! Perhaps I will just stick to my 64 bit world.

Thanks anyways for the help, brobots!