PICkit2 Drving me nuts!!!!

[Archangel]

It was a simple blink circuit and my power supply is a fixed bench top power supply

I believe I just have a bad programmer because the programmer would say it reads a device and then say it didn't

I say I should just move on to an Arduino

That's a choice, but it doesn't have to be an this <b>or </b> that choice. The PICKit2 will supply the chip and some simple circuits without an external power supply, it is a bit fussy about short circuits though. If you short it out you will have to unplug it and restart the software. Since you have the PICKit2 already, why not order the low parts count demo board and eliminate all the fussing with wires and breadboards to prove out code snippets, which you can translate over to other chips later, the 16F690 is a pretty powerful chip and the demo board couldn't be easier even if it had an Italian name. And trust me, PBP beats the heck out of all that screwy syntax the " C " languages use!