Sounds like the ribbon cable from the LCD panel to the motherboard is bad, if you gently squeeze around the edges of the display does the problem get better or worse?
If your AppleCare only expired a very short time ago you might want to see if you can still get the repair. I would contact Apple even though you are not close to a store. Apple is pretty good about extending warranties on products with a higher than normal failure rate and have in the past extended warranties on laptops which all had common failures.
There is a thread on here already about MBPs ribbon cables failing… [post|486856]