When fired point blank, plastic BBs can hurt as much as rubber bullets, however most people engaging in military simulations with airsoft guns wear thick military garb. Additionally, precautions are taken to protect the neck, face, and eyes. Many people chose to wear a balaclava around their face and neck and cobalt mine ANSI approved eye protect is a must. The only place that plastic BBs can really cause damage is to your eyes.
Power cords - Again, in my opinion, they are poor quality and might damage your electronics. Duct tape sand paper painter's tape lithium facts and bungee cords are good though.
The price of an external laptop battery may vary from brand to brand. But they are quite affordable and very compact device. They can be recharged with an external charger so you don't have to look out for an electric supply to charge the external battery.
Why lithium bettery stock is this important? If you have a relatively new PC the only problem you will get are error messages relating to the clock on start up. No big deal. If your PC is older then a low battery could be a nightmare. I had a PC which once every few months refused to boot. Rather than take the PC in for repair or start replacing parts myself the first thing I did was look at the BIOS settings. It was soon obvious that the BIOS settings were corrupt (wrong bus speed). I put a volt meter on the battery and sure enough it was reading 2.2 volts.
Briefly relating back to overall size... many lithium 18650's will differ ever so slightly in length (measured in millimeters). This is mainly due to an added protection circuit. The circuit helps to prevent the battery from over-discharging, since Li-ion cells can easily become damaged if their power is drained below a particular voltage. The protection circuit also prevents the cell from being over-CHARGED as well. These cells are very sensitive. They must be handled carefully, gently, and as described above, must never run-down too far, or be charged over and above their threshold. They can actually explode if severely mistreated!
Recharge the battery to full again and repeat the above steps a few more times. This will allow you to use the battery for a longer time and you can do this no more than once a month. Replacement batteries can be expensive and stretching out their use when you are on a budget can help.