Yeah, I have a Vox thing that plugs into the guitar (the Lead guitar version) via headphones, but the weight of my headphones and my headphone cord kept bothering me when I was using it before. I prefer an amp on low volume. At least the Vox thing was only $20 when I bought it a few years back. I think they're like $40 now? I keep it in my case in the event I'm going somewhere for some reason.

The guitar isn't that expensive, fortunately. I think I paid $250 for it? It's an all black Epiphone Les Paul w/o a whammy bar. The only downside of it is that it doesn't stay in tune very well. I have to keep tuning it. But then again, it was a cheap guitar, so that's to be expected. (I'd rather risk damaging a sh_tty guitar than a nice one. Plus, it doesn't matter so much for a beginner.) If I get better at things and stick to it this time (at least 1 yr of everyday practice), then I'll buy a better guitar. But I'm definitely going to try to be careful with mania -- thanks.

I did go overkill with some strings, though. I bought a bunch of regular custom gauge slinkys. At least I used a string already. (Snapped the high E string while trying to tune the crappy guitar!!) And I bought a bajillion accessories.