Which path

[zacnotes]

I am terribly interested in learning microprocessor programming, but am a little unsure of where to start. AVR or Arduino? I will have to learn the programming language along with it. Which do you suggest? I am honestly a little uncertain about the capabilities of each. I am familiar with general circuitry, and want to enhance my creations with the possibilities opened up with a microprocessor. These sites are awesome, by the way.

[adafruit]

arduino is the name of an avr board, so if you learn arduino you're really learning avr (although its a little hidden)
i suggest going with arduino because its friendlier than rushing into dealing with fuses, registers and interrupts
i have some tutorials at www.ladyada.net/learn/arduino
once you get good with arduino, its easy to use that knowledge for generic avr/microcontroller programming

[The_Don125]

Arduino is much easier to ease into than a plain AVR, since it has a very C-like programming language that is easy to learn and use. Its USB capabilities are superb as well. I've also seen hacks for the Arduino to turn it into a basic AVR programmer, so that's a pretty major plus, since AVR programmers are anywhere from $20-$100's of dollars otherwise.

[zacnotes]

Thanks for the assistance, i have gone through the tutorials and now plan a purchase for the arduino when i have the funds. any ideas for a good first project? something to stretch me a little, but not leave me totally confused? I feel that i understood the tutorials pretty well, without actually having a unit on hand.