For many people, there are two real nightmares in life: Doing your taxes and hooking up an AV / Digital receiver. Well for your taxes there's H&R Block and for hooking up your receiver there's a great step by step walkthrough at Sound and Vision Online. The article breaks down each part of the receiver:

Most source components have the same basic types of analog connections: the familiar left- and right-channel stereo audio outputs plus a composite-video output on gear like a DVD player, a video hard-disk recorder (such as a TiVo), or a VCR. Both use the most common type of A/V jack - the coaxial RCA connector - and are coded white or black for the left audio channel, red for the right channel (just remember, "red means right"), and yellow for video.

Okay so now you've got no excuse for not hooking up that receiver you got for Christmas two years ago.

Read Back to Basics: How to Set Up Your Receiver