Eh, same newbie mistake I recently promised myself never to repeat again: FIRST choose a chip that suits all your needs, THEN buy, instead of FIRST buy, THEN think how to work around all the problems.

For now I suggest ordering free samples on some manufacturers sites thus getting something easier to use for a complete newbie for free. (programmable with RS232 built-in eeprom is an enormous help!)
http://www.maxim-ic.com/ ships really fast and has a nice choice of microcontrollers. (for "standard" just pick high-speed microcontrollers and fit them with standard 12MHZ clock). Watch out for package available, pick DIP as ending up with a LQFP you could just as well go and buy/order a new one (I expect some 6-8 months of learning simpler stuff before I'll be able to start efficiently working with the 100LQFP chips I got...)

B. Wucke - Still a newbie.