[long version]
York... In trying to answer your original question.... Your next course of action really depends on your ultimate goal. You mentioned you liked hacking for your personal enjoyment. If that is the case I would probably recommend OSCP for you. If your ultimate goal is to gain a job in network security I would recommend a different route. Your programming skills will come in handy for pentesting but you will most certainly need a solid background in networking and administration first. I hight doubt there are many jobs available for just pentesters. Most security jobs involve auditing, consulting, and a small amount of pentesting. For a security job you not only need to know the weakness but more importantly why the weakness work and even more importantly how to fix them.

I also imagine that if you dive headfirst into OSCP and CEH you might be lost unless you have that solid ground in networking and administration. By the way I consider both of those certifications just bonus items to a resume, definitely not a main attraction. Sure Certified Ethical Hacker may look good to an HR rep and may help you get the interview but security professionals know that a CEH cert alone doesnt even come close to making you a good pentester. If you don’t have that understanding of networking you’ll be missing out on allot of what OSCP and CEH have to teach you. You basically will just be memorizing commands.

If a career is what you are going for I recommend knocking out A+ (since you said you are already good at building and rebuilding computers) If that is the case you might be able to grab a book and study for a week and pass the exam. Next move on to N+ then maybe consider getting an MCSA or MCSE. The MCSE and MCSA ensure you have a solid understanding of networking and common protocols. Understanding how network administrators think and operate is essential for security professionals, pentesters, and hackers! At this point before going to CEH I would say go for the CISSP. The CISSP will look awesome on your resume and pretty much solidify that you understand what the field of network security is about. From here I would begin the process of learning specific hack methods, tools, exploits, etc. CEH is an overview of the WHAT and WHY of hacking and countermeasures but the HOW is a lot harder to get. OSCP shows a portions of the HOW as it relates to the backtrack OS. This should be a good launch pad for  your quest of gaining the how. This is where google, forums and irc come in.

You also brought up virtualization. Vmware is awesome imho. Vmware is great for allowing you to set up environments to practice your pentesting skills.

[/long version]

[short version]

before tackling the CEH or OSCP make sure you spend the time learning networking and administration. If you just want to have fun and hack in your free time go ahead and take OSCP to learn some methods of hacking. If you want to make security your career CEH and OSCP are not enough. Consider reading the long version for my opinion why.

[/short version]

"before tackling the CEH or OSCP make sure you spend the time learning networking and administration"

After reading the thread this is the only time that actually focusing on and getting a solid grounding in fundamentals was mentioned.

A cert does NOT make you a pentester/auditor/hacker.

Not knowing your skill level or experience i would have to suggest that you take the above advice and learn, really learn, networking and the various OSes, etc... without that knowledge you won't understand security whether it is from the offensive or defensive perspectives.

I would have to say that knowing tcp/ip is a requirement before all else. If you cannot read a packet dump or understand what legitimate traffic should look like you cannot hope to detect illegal traffic. That goes for both attacking and defending too.

Anyone can learn how to use a tool but having a solid understanding of the theory behind the tools is far more important.

Cheers,
Dean