I Suck

For a while now I've been trying to figure out how to create a map which has text boxes pop up when you click on specific areas of it. I need the text boxes to be of variable size and (ideally) not to actually look like a window. I've thought about html, dhtml, and Flash ... and I'm sure that I should be able to find a solution in any one of these ... unfortunately I'm clearly too stupid to see the solutions, and have been for the past several weeks.

Well I've decided to forego my pride and ask if any of you chaps can give any suggestions? Ideally the suggestion will involve html, CSS and z-axis manipulation (needs to work on at least IE and Firefox by the way) and will ebe something that my little brain can make sense of.

The annoying thing is that I'm certain I've done this before ... I just can't recall where.