[kevincrane]

I learned with a Squier starter pack (Squier is Fender's low-end brand if that name rings a bell). Basically anything on this page: http://www.musiciansfriend.com/guitar-value-packages

Those kits are nice because they come with a cheap guitar, case, and amp, plus usually an instructional book/DVD. This means that if you bail you're not out too much money, and at an intro skill level you likely won't notice the difference in quality anyway.

I took a few lessons, but honestly I kind of bailed on those and moved on to teaching myself through tabs online. Go to http://ultimate-guitar.com/ and find simple songs you like (Iron Man, Smoke on the Water, etc.) and just keep trying them til you learn. Eventually you move on to chords (my first song with chords was American Pie) and you just going from there. I'm in the process of teaching myself music theory on the guitar to help myself, but I've gotten busy and it's kind of petered off.