MP, (got a name?)

I suggest you get a PICKIT2 and program in PIC assembler (I don't think the PIC is really suited to a HLL) with MPLAB. As to choice of PIC, there are many (too many?) that'll do the job, I suggest you pick one with more I/O and internal resources than you need (you're not buying millions, so the difference in cost between that and one that'll just do the job is pennies).

I know you're re-inventing the wheel, but hey, we all know we could improve on round...