Thanks everyone. Cowboylogic's information helped answer a lot of the real basic questions I had and should help me get started.
As for a few more details, I do plan on growing outdoors as I have no space in the house i'm living in that would be safe to grow the plant(s). The plan is to get about 4 plants to maturation, so I'll probably plant about 10 and hope for the best. I live in Wisconsin and a lot of good bud is grown here so I should be able to get some good seeds for not too much dough. Mostly I'm growing just for recreational use so to speak, I don't plan on dealing and no I definitely do not intend to tell a soul about the fact that I'm starting a small garden.
One more quick question, does the period before the plant flowers make a real big difference in weed quality? I am really sick of paying way too much for my weed but I sure as hell am not going to stop smoking for 6 months while I wait for my plants to grow. If I gave it 12 hours of light a day as that little pamphlet suggested, hopefully having buds ready to strip from the plant in 2.5-3 months, will I end up with real shitty weed? If that's the case I will give more light and be patient but if I can even just get some decent weed within that 2.5-3 month period I would rather do that, at least with my first attempt at a crop.
Thanks everyone for the help/warnings, I'll probably be sticking around here for a while
lookin forward to discussing shit with you all.