Illustrator CS5: where to start?

[xOneDown]

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