That darn blue screen...
 

One of my friends said he gets it when he's sitting with the laptop in his lap and his legs are blocking the fan and the computer overheats. I've started getting it too on my laptop. Is that why (because I've been sitting in a position that is possibly blocking it both times I've gotten it) or should I look for the cause elsewhere?

Why don't you check if the system overheats? There are enough (free) tools out there for monitoring hardware temperature.

I was asking if anyone can follow up on this.

Laptops have very small cooling fans, and blocking any of the ports definately will cause heat issues. You and your friend should probably invest in one of these or one of these.

Sadly, without changing your sitting style, there isn't really any other way to get around heat issues. And your problem definately seems to be a heat issue.

Sometime overheat will cause it, but can be other issue too, like hardware dying or software conflict. You should check the error log, get the stop code and find that out.

Control Panel> Adminstrative Tools> Event viewer> System and check for the stop error code, and look for the defintion on M$ site, you should able to find out something.