I wound up taking a similar approach to learning how to program but rather than VB.NET I dove headfirst into VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) for Microsoft Excel. I think it may have been the perfect intro to scripting, working with spreadsheet data you can easily see what all of the data is that you're working with and you can see what it's actually doing. All of the default libraries are Excel related but it seems like it can be expanded out a bit to include other VB libraries if needed.
I'd definitely recommend this as an intro to programming.
Sports brands, fast-food, clothing, news outlets, comic books, etc all likely use that type of brain activity. It all has to do with brand recognition and groupthink mentality. Basically, anything that has FANS will have a pseudo-religious reaction.