Mike,
Just a few weeks ago I too was a frustrated teenager, ha ha ha. I assume you're running Windows on your own computer, so I advise that you do what I did, which was to:
install Apache. At least, that's what I installed because my web server is running Apache and I'm building a site for it. See http://httpd.apache.org.
install PHP4 and get it working with Apache. There are some helpful installation guides at http://php.net (and elsewhere).
install MySQL if you want to work with a database, although it sounds like for this site you probably won't need to. It would be better to start with just PHP first anyway.
if you do install MySQL, which can be very frustrating if you're used to user-friendly GUI interfaces like most of us, get something like DBTools, which is a Windows program which makes it easier to work with a MySQL database (especially if it will be transported eventually to a remote server).
ask lots of stupid, foolish questions. There seems to be a much bigger developers' community for PHP/MySQL than for any other language - at least of the ones I've worked with.
I almost forgot - first, buy a good PHP book. I got one called Professional PHP Programming, which is excellent for my needs.
-Keegan
