post alignment & pagination issues with first template

*Warning*
I am a noob and beginning to start develop wordpress (CMS-based) websites from scratch.

problem site: chapdaddy.me

1st Problem: Okay, so the grey left column containing the blog post previews is having alignment issues with it’s text and I’m not quite sure what is causing the misalignment. I get no errors in the firebug error console.

2nd Problem: As per the Warning mentioned above, I am attempting to add pagination and have found at least 5 different sources/tutorials with some differences between the php code for paginating properly. Here’s what I settled with:

<div class="pagination">
		    <?php global $wp_query;

				$big = 999999999; // need an unlikely integer

				echo paginate_links( array(
					'base' => str_replace( $big, '%#%', get_pagenum_link( $big ) ),
					'format' => '?paged=%#%',
					'current' => max( 1, get_query_var('paged') ),
					'total' => $wp_query->max_num_pages
				) );
			?>
		</div><!-- End Pagination -->

my question for the pagination is this; how can I get rid of the texted-based “Previous/Next” and replace it with « / $raquo; along with actually showing both buttons instead of just the “next” button?