Inoculation is not as easy as it looks, the agar is slippery, and slides around when you try to poke it with the loop.
hollywoodbrew, your tubes are slants, the idea is lots of surface area; just streak the loop around on the surface.
When you poke a loop or needle into the agar, it's called, obviously enough, a 'stab culture.' For those, don't cool the agar on a slant, just have the tubes upright. They're a good way to keep stuff longer than slant, where you intend to only go into them a time or two, because they're even less likely to dry out. They also allow microbiologists to see if a microbe can grow in air or without air all in one tube.
Slants are great for observing the "growth habit" of the strain and easily getting some to inoculate a second culture.
Cheers on the bank.