learning resources for PHP

Hello list, I am quite sure that you've heard this question at least a few times before. :) But I have been dabbling a bit in PHP for years and I've decided that its' high time that became serious about getting a solid grounding in it. Currently I work as a Sysadmin and have modest but reliable skills in bash and perl. But I consider PHP more of an artform and I really need to 'pick up a brush and start painting' so to speak. So what I was wondering what websites, and books you'd recommend to someone who (for all intents and purpose) is just starting out. On my hit list of things to learn are basic php / database interaction (mysql mainly).. then how to accelerate php interraction through memcache.. and eventually one I have all that down onto using some of the NoSQLs (mongo/cassandra/membase, etc). Thanks! -tim -- GPG me!! gpg --keyserver pool.sks-keyservers.net --recv-keys F186197B