This is the path.
It is not a question of stupidity, but of our lack of adequate user-friendly documentation, of the "take you by the hand" variety that is so important for people just starting out. A Mercer book for
5.1, so to speak.
Well, to compensate we have nice people like Bill pointing the way on this list and... the handbooks! (Hit the handbooks button at the top of drupal.org).
Who would have thought that at
http://drupal.org/node/21866 there is an article embedded there about Custom Blocks, which doesn't actually come out and say what you need here exactly, but ... "
Each custom block has a title, a description, and a body. The content within the body can be as long as you wish." It omits the detail about which filter to apply (full, filtered html, etc, even php), but...
The thing is, you have to read and re-read the handbooks, in sequential search mode, until you get the hand of how it is organized. Because there is a wealth of info there. They are not so badly organized, it is just that there is an overwhelming amount of info, since Drupal is a lot like a hot-rod kit!
saludos,
Victor Kane
http://awebfactory.com.ar