Not a gaming machine, use my desktop for that. It will most likely be my personal laptop. I'll take it with me when I go places and work on things for school and such as well.

(Please note, "work" may also apply to small dev projects)

Any spec suggestions would be nice too.

If you're looking for Mac specs, there's a few questions you should ask yourself:

Do you use headphones a lot?
Are you going to want to upgrade your HDD size at some point?
Are you going to use things like photoshop that use palettes that take up a lot of screen space?
Do you look at your keyboard when typing?
Do you type in the dark (i.e. in a car on a long trip, we've all been there...)?
Do you plan on being shot at?
Do you plan to ever buy/use final cut studio 2?
Do you plan on the laptop being on your LAP?
Are you going you going to use an external monitor?
Does having an integrated graphics card bother you?
Do you want to look pretty?
Do you want people to look at you with great envy? :p

My answers, respectively:

1. Only when I need to (when I am using it in the same room as my family/and sometimes watching a movie).
2. Yes, eventually. (You can never have too much space, but I'm sure someone will link to something that proves me wrong)
3. Yes. The better the screen space-to-price ratio is, the better.
4. Only sometimes. (Like when I use the number line to type in numbers)
5. At night I do, and other times as well so, yes.
6. I won't take any chances when I go to college/an educational facility, so yes.
7. Maybe, I'm not big into video editing, seeing as all I have right now is Movie Maker, but I am planning on getting a Trial version on Sony Vegas.
8. Sometimes, depends on the situation.
9. Probably not.
10. If it's a good quality card then no, but if all they offer is crappy stuff then yes.
11. Define pretty.
12. Define envy. (Just kidding, heck yeah! \o/)

Both the MacBook and MacBook pro have stereo speakers, but the Pro (at least the 17" one) has speakers each as big as my hand. At least, that's how it looks from the outside (I haven't taking one apart since the new models). Sound is a lot better too. Headphones quality is the same either way. MacBooks are a lot easier to upgrade the HDD with (remove battery, remove shield, slide out old, slide in new). MacBook Pros involve taking the beast apart and probably voiding your warranty. Unless you can run to an Apple store to have them do it for you. MacBook Pros come in a few sizes, but MacBooks all have the same screen size. I can manage personally, but I do admit it took some getting used to. Moo. MacBook Pros have this fancy keyboard that illuminates the keys from below, and a sensor (hidden in both speakers) to detect when it might be difficult for you to see the keys. You saw the MacBook Pro taking a bullet in the link above, right? FCS2 requires a video card, and the MacBook doesn't have one (integrated graphics). The MacBook Pro is better than the MacBook in its cooling system. Few laptops SHOULD be on your lap these days (my last PC laptop actually discoloured my jeans), but if it's not avoidable, use the Pro. Or a fanboard. Mmkay. Define "good quality." You can get nifty translucent cases for both models, but they look best on white MacBooks MacBook Pros are the source of envy in many mac users. This is for good reason: look at the price.

So you have a normal MacBook? Yuppers. Looked at the Apple website. I really want a MBP, but they're just too expensive, what is the best game (as in power requirements) you can run on the Intel graphics? Nice.

I looked online and discovered that a mall near me has an Apple store. Best Buy also has an "Apple Shop", but I think I'll take it to the geniuses.

Nah, my MacBook is fine on my lap as long as it's not plugged in. If it's plugged in it gets pretty hot.
Age of Empires III works great on my year-old MacBook (and doesn't run on my friends' comparitively-priced PC laptops! Apparently the MacBook's integrated graphics card is actually a higher-end one. Who'da thought?). I'm not hardcore into shooters so I can't say about that, (though Postal 2 works OK, not that I play it or anything) but I played the demo of "Prey" and it was playable, if pretty jerky. And I was running it under the "minimum requirements" too.
They've also upgraded the chips since then, Spore for example won't work on mine (though it apparently will if I boot into Windows), but it will work on the newer ones.

Anyway, here's a thread with a list of some recent games that work:
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=466170
There are other things like this, a google search for "Macbook games" brings up all sorts of things.
What the hell is "Mac memory"? For the most part Macs can take the same memory chips as everyone else...

Thanks for that, now I'm looking for good deals. I've found a Macbook for about $950 on Pricegrabber. Any suggestions?

That depends. A lot. MacBooks, looking at ONLY the CPU, can come between 1.6 and 2.4 GHz in model. And that's assuming Core2 Duo, which Locutus (the MacBook of mine before this one; it died young) did not have (it had a CoreDuo and Tycho can account for my endless whining about this fact).

I heard the newer Penryn chip gives the new processors a nice kick to them. My Windows laptop has an old 2GHz AMD in it, so I think a newer Intel of the same speed would actually be an improvement.

I'm looking into Apple resellers now.

You should have done this over the summer. Apple usually has nice deals during the summer (the year I bought mine you got a free iPod with a laptop purchase).
Also don't forget about student discounts (though there might not be as many of them for high schoolers).

It should be noted however that they tend to come out with the newer models around November.

Yeah, Apple doesn't treat high schoolers that well. And I thought the iPod/laptop deal was for college-bound students as well?

I might just hold out until the new Intel chips come out (Nehalem or something, they look interesting).

Oh hey look a bragging thread... erm:

Windows XP x64 sp2
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Black Edition +5000 @ 2.8 Ghz
4096 MB DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800
EVGA Nvidia Geforce 8800 GTS 320MB (from when it still roxed hard)
500 GB Western Digital Caviar SE16 SATA 3.0 Gb/s
160 GB Samsung Nameless SATA 3.0 Gb/s
Some new SATA LG DVD burner with Lightscribe SATA 1.5 Gb/s
Logitech G5 Gaming Mouse - 6 Button - Rust

I have one of these. Not LG, but...

I have yet to find any lightscribe disks, however.

I've got a stack of 20 of them.