I've been playing electric guitar (or trying to anyway) since Sep.'05. I bought an Epiphone Les Paul Jr., a 15-watt Marshall practice amp, and a really nice hardshell case from musiciansfriend.com for under $260 delivered. I can't stand playing chords and try to play lead riffs and solos only. At first I used online tabs and books to try to learn, but these days I'm more into improvising rather than doing covers.

btw -- Playing guitar (not strumming to assinine campfire tunes) is a helluva lot harder than most people realize, lemme tell ya. Virtually half the houses you walk into will have an acoustic guitar sitting somewhere doing a find alternate job of being a dust collector -- there's a reason for that.