Any electronics experts in SG?

[Shadowex3]

I know this is a little further down the evolutionary ladder from computers but it's still tech so I think I'm still in the right forum with this.

 

A while back I barely managed to kludge together an RS232TTL circuit to tweak a *tron monitor I had, and despite the hairpulling nosebleed inducing frustration I pretty much enjoyed myself... especially when it finally worked.

 

So I decided that along with a few other hobbies I had as a kid I'd pick electronics back up. I'm set for theory I think, pretty much everyone says that Forrest Mims' "Getting Started in Electronics" and the "Art of Electronics" are about as good as you get, it's just the practical side that I'm still looking at. I've seen a LOT of one-trick arduino kits with what's basically a bisquick recipe for baking something up, and the two that I've been most attracted to (and heard the most praise for so far) are the Nerdkit* and Make: Electronics (there's also a components pt2).

 

Are there any electronics TFPers that could weigh in on this, giving an appraisal of either of those or suggesting something similar that's good? I'm planning to learn a bit of both analog and digital electronics, digital for the microcontroller hacks and some analog because it'll come in handy in other areas.

 

 

*Ignore the $80 price, except for a handful of minor components and their PDF guide it's possible to build the entire thing for like $36.