wooooooooo....
Slow down, your getting ahead of yourself a bit!! -- Using a micro-controller isnt just picking one up and plugging in into a circuit!
The task your setting yourself is (for a beginner) very complex indeed... I suggest you slow down a bit.
To start with, you need to make some choices:
What micro is best for you?
What programming language are you going to use?
What compiler are you going to use?
What chip-programmer are you going to use?
What development enviroment are you going to use?
Possibly the simpliest to use micros i have used is the Microchip PIC (
www.microchip.com). There is a very wide range of devices that can do almost any task you could imagine.
I tend to use these devices for alot of applications, coupled with MPLAB (also from microchip) or PicAnt (
www.picant.com) for the development enviroment and compiler. - I program in "C" for all my embedded applications (erm, and assembly where required, but we wont get into that).
I use a old programmer that i bought about 5 years ago to program the devices.
My first suggestion would be to go to the libary or look around the internet for some projects that do simple things like flash LEDs or drive 7-segment displays.
Use a chip that is "flash programmable" as these are cheep and can be re-programmed when you make a change to your software.
Once you have mastered programming a simple application, then we can move on to the big application.
Carfull software planning will be needed for a project of this size, so dont forget to flow-chart all your code!