First Post Different – almost there…

I want the first post on the homepage to be different than the rest. I searched the internet and tried MANY code snippets, and finally got the following to work…

<!-- START Top Post -->
 <?php $top_query = new WP_Query('showposts=1'); ?>
<?php while($top_query->have_posts()) : $top_query->the_post();
$do_not_duplicate = $post->ID; ?>

<p>FIRST</p>
<div class="post-content">
	<?php $post_excerpt = of_get_option('post_excerpt'); ?>
	<?php if ($post_excerpt=='true' || $post_excerpt=='') { ?>
	<?php $excerpt = get_the_excerpt(); echo my_string_limit_words($excerpt,23);?>
	<?php } ?>
	<a>" class="button"><?php _e('Read more', 'dirtygirl'); ?></a>
</div>

<?php endwhile; ?>
 <!-- END Top Post -->

 <!-- START Other Posts -->
<?php $top_query = new WP_Query('showposts=7&offset=1'); ?>
<?php while($top_query->have_posts()) : $top_query->the_post();
$do_not_duplicate = $post->ID; ?>

      <article id="post-<?php the_ID(); ?>" <?php post_class('post-holder'); ?>>
        <div class="inner">

        <?php $post_image_size = of_get_option('post_image_size'); ?>
				<?php if($post_image_size=='' || $post_image_size=='normal'){ ?>
          <?php if(has_post_thumbnail()) {
            echo '<figure class="featured-thumbnail"><span class="img-wrap"><a href="'; the_permalink(); echo '">';
            echo the_post_thumbnail();
            echo '</a></span></figure>';
            }
          ?>
        <?php } else { ?>
          <?php if(has_post_thumbnail()) {
            echo '<figure class="featured-thumbnail large"><span class="img-wrap clearfix"><span class="f-thumb-wrap"><a href="'; the_permalink(); echo '">';
            echo the_post_thumbnail('post-thumbnail-xl');
            echo '</a></span></span></figure>';
            }
          ?>
        <?php } ?>

	   <div class="extra-wrap">

	   	<header class="entry-header">
          <h2><a>" title="<?php the_title(); ?>" rel="bookmark"><?php the_title(); ?></a></h2>
          <?php $post_meta = of_get_option('post_meta'); ?>
					<?php if ($post_meta=='true' || $post_meta=='') { ?>
            <div class="post-meta">
              <div class="fleft"><time datetime="<?php the_time('Y-m-d\TH:i'); ?>"><?php the_time('d-j-Y'); ?></time> <?php comments_popup_link('0', '1', '%', 'comments-link', 'Comments are closed'); ?></div>
            </div><!--.post-meta-->
          <?php } ?>
        </header>

        <div class="post-content">
          <?php $post_excerpt = of_get_option('post_excerpt'); ?>
      		<?php if ($post_excerpt=='true' || $post_excerpt=='') { ?>
            <div class="excerpt"><?php $excerpt = get_the_excerpt(); echo my_string_limit_words($excerpt,23);?></div>
          <?php } ?>
          <a>" class="button"><?php _e('Read more', 'dirtygirl'); ?></a>
        </div>

	   </div>
	   </div>
      </article>

<?php endwhile; ?>
 <!-- END Other Posts -->

The problem is that I can no longer get past the first page. If I click on page 2, the URL changes, but the content doesn’t (i.e., the EXACT SAME posts show on all pages).

Can someone please take a look at my code and tell me what I’m doing wrong?

Thank you so much for your help!

[Moderator Note: Please post code or markup snippets between backticks or use the code button. Or better still – use the pastebin. As it stands, your code may now have been permanently dmaged/corrupted by the forum’s parser.]