I got started by playin online. Here is a screenshot of the early player. I still remember fondly the end of game 'bells tolling' sound.

At around the same time, I got me a Deckbuilder's Toolkit. As a casual player, I still consider this to be the best Magic product. Here are pages with some of the cards.

Toolkit Pages: Page 1 / Page 2 / Page 3 / Page 4 / Page 5 / Page 6 / Page 7

Also at that time, I started a blog, the MTG Adventures blog.