Simple minded programming.

OO Python is the wrong first step. Getting procedural code down first is a must. OOP just gets in the way since it's often misused. Hell, I misused it for 4 years or so until I really started to truly understand it. Sadly that doesn't happen to most programmers. Since I realized what I was doing wrong and fixed it, I now see that most are still doing it wrong. So I'm strongly against people learning OOP early on. At the least they need to understand the callstack before using it. Cause I've seen people use the callstack to loop code that could have been done just as easily in a typical loop structure and wasted the callstack limit for crap. This is because they weren't taught to use looping properly.

Let me start by saying "holy shit it's GLG!"
Well if OOP is a bad first step, what would you suggest I start at? I've had an easier time on Javascript thanks to the links Lenny gave, but currently having shit internet/no access to college classes is sort of got me cornered. I want more of a challenge, but something that won't be otherworldly for beginners.