no you are not. i am in the same boat, but i can't quite figure out how to buy them yet 
Yeah getting your hands on coins is a pain. i managed to find someone in my city who sold me some
thats the easiest
Maybe the US is different; but in the UK...
- Register at Intersango
- Login to your online bank
- Cut and paste account transfer information from intersango page to online bank page
- Buy
Other than the manual copy and paste of an account number and reference, it's no harder than the supposed holy grail of paypal purchasing.
Once you've got bitcoins you can transfer them to any other exchange you like and trade in any currency you like. Or just keep them on your desktop computer.
Are things that different in the US that it's really a "pain in the ass" to buy coins?
very similar process on MTGox. Very easy.
And yeah, I'm a newbie who's just buying coins too. As a punt they're brilliant even at twice this price