Since I can't ask this outside of the kiddy pool, I'll ask here...

How does a person merge mine?  Days of sifting through the forum as a lurker have come up with little specific information, but I'm quite happy with someone saying "Hey noob, you shoulda looked at XYZ.  Quit cluttering our beautiful, drama free forums with inane questions!"

I realize that merge mining is done on the pool end.  I also realize that mining is really only relevant if you're using a pool: solo mining, even with ASICs, is still losing money.

My idea is to use P2Pool so that I'm not mining solo, but so that I also have the same tools that a full pool operator has.  I know from reading the P2Pool thread that merged mining of altcoins is possible as well... 

Can anyone help a dumb noob out?