Illustrator CS5: where to start?

I've been wanting to learn Illustrator and PhotoShop to compliment web development. I've had absolutely no trouble finding massive amounts of general PhotoShop tutorials (basically beginner guides), but I haven't found nearly as much for Illustrator. The problem isn't finding tutorials for Illustrator, it's that all of them are too task-specific. Everything I've found is something like "Creating wood texture in Illustrator" or "Using Illustrator to get magnifying glass effect." I'm looking for something more like this - http://sythe.org/member.php?u=324216 - but anything you could recommend would be great.

Thanks,
xOD