I know that you need to let the money "rot" for 30 or so days and then automagically blocks 'might' appear, but I'd really like a better explanation.
And what about the stake part? By stake I assume gambling where it's a win OR lose meaning I could find a proof-of-stake block or lose my money?
No you don't lose the stake it's only withheld for a few days after generating a block for the network. Here stake means more like shares than the gambling stake.
For more explanations on this topic please see our FAQ: https://github.com/ppcoin/ppcoin/wiki/FAQ
I will probably in next couple weeks put all the information together and form a secondary FAQ.