Ice-Dice.com is awesome!

I am anxious to learn so much more about bitcoins. I feel as though I missed the boat as I nearly bought in after the "crash" with mtgox earlier this year. Yesterday I was bored so I decided I was going to look in to bitcoins again. I felt a little crushed to see the current value of bitcoins. Nonetheless, I am now hoping to get a little more active. I am wondering what the opinion is on cloud mining. That aspect of bitcoins, mining, has always interested me. Is this the best way for a newbie to do this?