Newbie Needing Help

Hello everyone!
Well I'll get right to it. Here is my situation. I currently live in a house with three roomates and one desktop computer that has dial up. Needles to say this situation sucks. I called our local cable company to see about getting a great deal on a cable package that would include high speed internet and found a really good deal, only my roomates wouldn't go for it.

So I'm left with no other choice. I plan on buying a laptop in the coming months ahead and I'm a newbie with laptops. Ultimately I plan on playing online games, surfing the internet and downloading and burning music. Now I know I can go to the Dell website and search around for the "perfect" laptop haha but my real question is wireless internet.

I'll mainly be using my laptop in my room but it would be nice to be able to use it anywhere and I'm looking for something faster than this dreadful dial up. Any suggestions on providers? I've seen somewhere that Verizon has an unlimited deal for $59 a month, something about an air card (which I have no idea what that is or how that works ) and that I'd be able to get internet service anywhere I could use a cell phone.

I don't have a cell phone and I have a feeling if I call Verizion they will want some crazy deposit, like for a cell phone, before I can get the service. Any help would be appreciated. As you can probably tell I'm no expert when it comes to this stuff haha!

Thanks again!