Hi Jason, I can answer the first question for you.

When it comes time to purchase your domain, look for a hosting company that offers the domain for free. Many do this if you purchase a years worth of hosting.

Next when looking at a hosting company, make sure they offer cPanel and fantastico. Fantastico is an add on product that a lot of the Linux based hosting companies offer, it contains many applications that can be installed through cPanel (the web based GUI interface for managing your hosting). Most importantly, Fantastico contains, Wordpress in it. That is what you will want to use for your Blog. Granted it will be an older version of Wordpress, but good enough to get your blog going. You can even find plenty of free templates for it as well as other add ons for Wordpress.

This is the easiest way to get a blog going, other than signing up at Blogger or Wordpress.

Fantastico also has a free autoresponder in it. But be warned it is very difficult to work with and the results may not be the best. You are better off signing up for a commercial autoresponder. If you are just getting your feet wet for the first time, then you can use Email Aces, they offer a free account. That should be enough for you to start with.

I hope that helps.

Darren