w00t my first post :-)
I've been programming for about 6 years now...I started out on BASIC (yes that's right) on a Commodore 64, and then fooled around with C++ and VB. C++ is hard to learn by yourself (IMHO); VB is quick--you'll pick it up in a day. I tried java but again, i couldn't learn it on my own so I'm taking a class this fall on it. Take Java ;-)