Assuming you actually come back and read these posts (most n00bs post and forget about the board hah), the best tools out there are connected to your head: your ears. Never forget that. No matter how good/expensive the program, no matter how sweet the outboard gear/plugins, no matter how expensive the mics or instruments, with a shitty set of ears and/or the lack of knowledge of how to use them, nothing else matters!
That said, I'd recommend getting something like an M-Box 2 Mini:
(
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/MBox2Mini)
It lets you get started learning Pro-Tools, which you'll find in nearly every major studio you could ever hope to work in. Why would this matter for you, a noob? (or neeb haha) Because if you do ever end up getting really f*cking good at this, you will have been brought up learning the industry-standard program, and if you continue to upgrade with Made-For-Pro-Tools equipment, you will always be able to bring your home projects into pro studios for mixing/re-mixing! If you get something like Reaper (a fine program, no doubt!) or something more professional like Sonar, it won't prevent you from doing anything Pro-Tools would let you do (in fact, some would argue Pro-Tools isn't even the best program out there, it's just the most popular), but it will prevent you from bringing your stuff into pro studios 99% of the time.
The best advice I can give? Read the SHIT out of these forums, read every single article you can find online, before you even think of buying anything or recording stuff. It'll give you such a heads-up on things, you'll bypass 99% of the guys getting into this stuff with the knowledge you'll receive. Then, experiment as much as you possibly can with the techniques you've read about. Then, when your stuff still sounds like shit, read some more
Wash-rinse-repeat, and never forget your ears, and you'll do fine!
