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[wierd]

When harvesting candy:

The tube leading to the circus needs to hold a 2 tile wide hole inside it. This means you can dig all around the tube, and not unleash the clowns, if you pay attention.

Basically, a tube that looks like this is a NO NO.

AAAA
AXXA
AAAA

(Where A is cotton candy, and X is unrevealed space)

A tube that looks like this, is definately safe to harvest:

AA
AA

And a tube that looks like this has some harvestable bits.

AAAAA
_AXXA
_AAAAAA

(Where _ is a floor.)

When in doubt, do without.

[Deepblade]

My suggestion is DO get close to your dwarves. As the story of your fortress progresses your dwarves live their lives. By getting close to your dwarves you experience the story even stronger. After all, It's always exciting when a dwarf gets mangled in a bloody battle but manages to survive after having killed a few goblins. But, it's even more exciting when it's your favorite Axedwarf that was a child in a long bloodline of amazing warriors from your fortress.
Sure, you'll be tempted to reset when things go horribly. But, it's just a part of the grand story that is the life of your fortress, and everything must end eventually.

Also, if you feel your mind slipping into insanity just go with it. In a world like DF, being sane is more insane than being insane.

[Callista]

You will lose forts to floods (magma or water), tantrum spirals, goblin ambushes, and marauding forgotten beasts. This is a rite of passage and it happens to everybody. When the mayor's intestines are hanging from the upended dining-room table as berserking children rampage through the halls punching kittens, sit back and enjoy the chaos. Then start up a new game. There's always the next fort.

[Necromunger]

For things like make 30 barrels ect, just make the job coordinator set it up for you.

[Dwarf Kitty]

You can turn on and off some features through editing init.txt and other raws.  Some mods, such as LNP and Masterwork, offer some toggleable features.  Other mods are just bits of raws to paste in.
 
This gives you endless customizations and things to try out.  Keep experimenting, and you will find a configuration and goal set that suits you.

[kingubu]

Hmm, popular thread.
Birds and eggs covers your food, trade, clothing, weapons, and armor needs.  At least for an early fort.

Lavish meals made of delicious eggs, meat, and tallow.
Leather armor, boots, shields, quivers, shirts, trousers, shoes.
Bone helms, leggings, gauntlets, crossbows, bolts.

A little work and your militia is ready to go all Zapp Brannigan on the next alien invaders.

Hmm, on second thought, this will require a custom embark, and a lot of a fiddling for a newbie.  Ignore all this. 

My actual advice is that you can request animals, listed under pets in the Liaison menu, from the Mountain Home.
So If you want to breed something, just ask them to send you a mated pair.

[InfinityOrNone]

A little work and your militia is ready to go all Zapp Brannigan on the next alien invaders.

On my command all ships will line up and file directly into the alien death cannons, clogging them with wreckage!

[wierd]

"The Killbots? A trifle! You just have to know their weakness! Turns out killbots have a pre-set kill limit. Knowing their weakness, I sent wave after wave of my own men at them, until they all shut down! Kif, Show them the medal I won!"

[Ragnar Gullfaxi]

Consider redirecting the water down a vertical channel, to build up pressure in it, then making it go off the edge of the map through a fortification slit.  That way you can teleport a goodly portion of the water away.

Ahhh.. now that I didn't know you could do. What is the significance of the fortification slit?

[Ragnar Gullfaxi]

Hmm, on second thought, this will require a custom embark, and a lot of a fiddling for a newbie.  Ignore all this. 

I'm more than open to custom embarks and fiddling it seems like the possibility space is vast, so things like this are a good way to get some ideas!

[WanderingKid]

Consider redirecting the water down a vertical channel, to build up pressure in it, then making it go off the edge of the map through a fortification slit.  That way you can teleport a goodly portion of the water away.

Ahhh.. now that I didn't know you could do. What is the significance of the fortification slit?

You can let water leave the map through the edges.  The reason it needs to be a fortification is because you can't actually dig away the outer tiles of the map.  To let water off the map (such as from an underground waterfall), you have to smooth the last stone against the edge of the map, then carve it (via d for designate, instead of b for build) into a fortification, allowing the water out.

[Lexx]

When starting out. Don't get overwhelmed by all the complex things you have no idea how to do. Focus on drink, food, shelter and somewhere for your beardlings to sleep. Then start working on other stuff and take it from there. If I could tell my past self this I wouldn't have stopped trying to get into the game several times and would have been enjoying myself far earlier with this joy of a game.

[UnlawfullyDeranged]

All the ones I've though of are taken. I assign (nickname) each dwarf a number when the population passes 50. Makes it a lot easier for me to keep track of that manic depressant who also happens to be my only decent armorsmith.

[thegoatgod_pan]

Alternate between macro and micro elements.
E.g.  spend some time setting up a clothing industry, streamlining production etc, establish that many  pants, shirts and shoes are being made then stop with the macro and switch to the micro level

investigate the family of an interesting dwarf, look at the stuff you have manufactured, tell your dwarves to sew images onto clothes and see what interestting tid bits of history turn up.

the devil is in the details, and the details will keep you invested, while the essential challenge of the game is to run the big picture so that the details have a chance to actually appear.

Also caverns are fun: especially if you add [PET] and [TAMEABLE] to the all the cavern creature raws and set up some cage traps. Jabberers and Rutherers make awesome pets.

[Scorch]

Brew more booze.
No, really. Out of containers? Make some stone pots, and brew more booze. Are those full yet? Good. Now do it again.

Few things are more frustrating than running out of booze.