Is there anything I can do with MS paint to make a good banner b/c most of the stuff ends up looking kind of boring

if you want to make better banners, you could download a trial version of photoshop or paint shop pro. or just buy them.

hm.... you could use this if you wanted to make layouts in ms paint:
http://www.createblog.com/tutorials/download.php?id=308

http://www.createblog.com/tutorials/download.php?id=289
http://www.createblog.com/tutorials/download.php?id=88
http://www.createblog.com/tutorials/download.php?id=84

search for tutorials on here.

You could always download a program called gimp. Its a free photoediting software.

http://gimp-win.sourceforge.net/stable.html

http://www.xanga.com/pspbrushes
scroll down at the bottom, and you can download trials for photoshop or paint shop pro.

Theres a lot of paint tuts..
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=ms+paint+tutorials