Seriously look into the 1Z triplets - Ultra Polish, Paint Polish and Metallic Polish - 2 tins of each.
Easy to use, hard to mess up and great results. (Can be worked by hand until PC arrives).
Get Lake Country pads - cutting, polishing and finishing - at least 3 of each.
Now that the polishing stuff is handled, you ONLY have to choose A finishing system out of the dozens available. I use the Klasse twins, UPP and SONUS QD. All are acrylic, all are compatable and provide fabulous shine and supurb protection against the 3 juices (mortal enemies of paint) birds, bugs and trees.
Almost forgot - get at minimum a dozen MF towels - the ones at Walmart are decent enough to start with - 3 5-packs should do it.
First time users of SG might tend to put it on too thick and have a battle trying to get it off. Here's what to to. Take a clean MF and dampen it with water to get it good and wet, then wring it out until almost dry. Fold in half, then into thirds. Put about a quarter sized dab of SG on the damp MF and wipe in over half your hood. Immediately wipe off with a clean dry MF. Proceed over the whole vehicle doing about 1/2 panel at a time as above. Read up here about the "BillNorth" method - piece of cake. If you get streaking, use the SONUS to clean it up. You can apply the first SG immediately after the AIO, but after that, you must wait a minimum of 24 hours before the next SG layer (or UPP layer).
Repeat until your eyes bleed from the intense shine.