Ok, this is kind of dumb, but I don't care.

How did you guys get started with Graphic Design? I would like to pursue this as a career, and was just wondering what kind of things you all did to help you get better at editing images and things like that.
Should I just look up random tutorials and try that?

I really have no direction.

This is mostly directed at Capty and Fygs, because you two seem to be the best on this forum, as far as I can tell.

I am using GIMP, because I am too cheap to buy PhotoShop.

Why not start offering your graphic design services to people, and building a portfolio? I know a few people doing graphic design now who got started by making forum signatures for people - in some cases, they even got paid to make the signatures. You could start off by offering graphic design services to friends/family who need it - it's a good way to build your skills and your portfolio.*

* Admittedly, this worked for me doing web development. Your mileage may vary in the area of graphic design.

Well, to anwser your first question, I got into graphic design as a result of getting into web programming in the eigth grade. Back then I was a fairly bad at everything I created, adn sadly you can probably still find some of my work around the web, but I was willing to take the time and create things (back then I used paint). Finally, at some point, people pointed me to The Gimp an I used that for a few years until I got the adobe web package and had fireworks ps and other programs. Now I use Fireworks and Gimp (because it feels more intuitive than ps does).

For the second question: While random tutorials can help you to hone your skills you must always also be able to create your own feel and work on getting your own types of things down. Maybe go out and do other people's things then go off and do your own things, I know that I have been able to come up with a number of cool effects by playing around with tutorials and taking them a step further. There are a number of good tutorial sites out there, some that I commonly use are:
http://www.gimptalk.com/forum/?sid=7dac1c6...cbd5de500c9e039
http://www.pixel2life.com/tutorials/gimp/
http://gimp-tutorials.net/
http://www.ultraweaver.com/index.asp
http://qrayg.com/learn/fireworks/
http://www.webdesign.org/web/photoshop/web-layout/

But there are a ton of others out there.

Other tips basically consist of practicing and (as girasquid said) getting a protfolio together.

I would say that it all depends on what type of graphic design you want to get into. I am by profession a print graphic designer because most of my work is printed i.e brochures, magazines, letterheads etc.
If you are a web designer, I believe it to be an easier task leaning the profession because if you can get it to look good on screen then you have got it right.
When I started out, I approached a studio and asked if I could hang around a bit and do odd jobs for free (making coffee, making copies) in exchange for being able to watch the designers doing their jobs. I also did the same with the local printing house so I could learn that process (which is really important if you become a print designer).

If you want to become a print designer, you must remember that there are usually three programes that you will need to know. One that is handles rasta (gimp, ps) one that handles vector (inkscape, CorelDraw , Illustrator) and one that handles layout (Scribus, InDesign). The first program of each is open source