I got it working with an aluminum capacitor!
this link helped a lot:
http://www.iguanalabs.com/555kit.htm
It's just blinking an LED on 15 seconds, off 15 seconds. Now to find myself a 12V 300ma power adapter (for the relay).
I've only got the one 100uF aluminum capacitor. I omitted the 0.01uF capacitor I've seen in most of the other schematics by following the link above and it worked. Know how this would affect it in the long run?
Oh, and how does one wire up a snubber? does the uF and the resistance have to be calculated?