Thanks for the tips. Yes, I know that reading is immensely useful. However, you need to crawl before walking. If I were just to jump into the middle of "advanced" (well, more like normal, but you get my point) Japanese texts, I would have to look up every third word and every other kanji, and after all of that, immersing myself in what I was reading would be pretty damn hard.
Do you happen to know of any good and reasonably "light" texts I could try? I think I'd prefer some fiction now. Something "funny" would be a huge plus.