Common sense emacs tutorial that doesn't assume I'm stupid?
mnemonicsloth: You might try the elisp programming intro.  You can read it online at http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/emacs-lisp-intro/, but the right way to access it is within emacs.  It should have an entry in the list of top-level nodes you'll see if you hit M-x info.Emacs also has a built-in repl, the Interactive ELisp Mode.  Hit M-x (alt-x) and type ielm (your cursor will have jumped down to the minibuffer below the mode line) and hit enter.  You'll find yourself in a buffer with an elisp prompt, where you can use tab completion and elisp's doc functions to do a lot of learning:  (documentation FOO)
  (apropos STRING)

documentation finds the docstring attached to function FOO and apropos searches for functions whose names match STRING.