From SparkFun, I picked up one of their simple $12 serial programmers, a 16F876A, and a crystal. (Stupidly, I didn't get any small caps to use with the oscillation...) For programming languages, I didn't want to jump right into ASM because I suck at it, so I downloaded SourceBoost (**broken link removed**. The IDE download comes with a C, C++, BASIC, and PASCAL compiler and the full license isn't TOO expensive for BoostC ($70 for a full no-limits license). Check it out, I've liked it so far.