Nycool,
Listen to spazz. Do the searches. My LBS strongly advised against tipping the nose of my saddle low enough that you could see it was tipped. They were right. I needed a cutout saddle. Terry butterfly to be exact.
As for shorts. Check out nashbar.com and performance.com

But most important, check out all the previous threads on these 2 topics. You'll learn more than you wanted to know!