getting started with pokemon card game

Hi there! My name is Derek and I am looking to get started playing the Pokemon Trading Card Game!

I have been looking for thee best way to get a lot of cards fast, and ALL of my friends said ebay. Do you guys have any suggestions? I am new on here, and any help you guys can give me, I would love!

I have looked been going through ebay ads and I have narrowed it down to these 2

ebay . com/Ultimate-Pokemon-Collection-924-Card-lot-MUST-SEE-/220648042188?cmd=ViewItem&pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item335fa5eecc

and


ebay . com/POKEMON-Card-Collection-over-700-Cards-Huge-lot-/230505182593?cmd=ViewItem&pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item35ab2df581

If you guys could help, OR if you guys have any other suggestions, let me know :) Oh, I had to put spaces in there because they won't let me put up links :(

None of the cards in the photos for either of those listings are playable in the current format. If you just want to collect cards for fun or just plan on playing your friends at home and don't care about official rules, then go ahead. If you plan to play at a league or at tournaments, then you will have to get some newer cards than those, the ones in those listings are from the first era of Pokemon cards, way back in '97.
If you're prepared to spend the kind of money those lots are listed for, then you may as well go for a few booster boxes from playable sets. The sets that are playable for this year until September 2011 are:

Diamond and Pearl: Majestic Dawn
Diamond and Pearl: Legends Awakened
Diamond and Pearl: Stormfront
Platinum
Platinum: Supreme Victors
Platinum: Rising Rivals
Platinum: Arceus
HeartGold Soul Silver
Unleashed
Undaunted
Any other sets that come out after these that havn't been announced yet.

I thought League was unlimited. At least to my knowledge it's been so around here. Of the Modded Legal sets though, I'd look at LA, PL, SF, HGSS, and UL. LA's got Uxie, Azelf, and some nice level X pokemon. PL has Broken Time Space, poketurn (if you rock a SP deck), SF has some decent cards in general, and UL has rare candy and some decent Primes. HGSS probably bears looking at too since it has the majority of the modded legal supporters other than Bebe's search, which is in RR.

League is unlimited in format for many players... but it does depend on your league, I think.

And older decks don't really have much of a chance against newer decks.

Oh really? I've never been to a league where they allow unlimited decks, that would be great for me because I still want to play Gyarados but they're pretty uptight at my league about being modified. I would still avoid unlimited cards if I were you, just in case you do want to compete in tournaments because they will definitely not allow unlimited there, and you don't want to be stuck with an unusable deck. And Donavannj's right, old decks can't really compete with new ones anyway, they've gotten progressively stronger over the years.