"I woke up this morning, excited kiddies on my bed..."

Well, something like that. We've had a day of present opening and good dining. The kids have overdosed on new toys. Power Rangers and Doctor Who are the main themes, with a dose of Scalextric. Memories of my childhood there. Then it's settle down for the TV treats, except there's not much new there. There's a couple of kids' films that we've had on DVD for ages, so the others are watching Some Like it Hot.

My special treat was to buy a new guitar from a local shop I've been wanting an acoustic for a while. I feel the need to learn some new technique and songs. I shall be exploring the many on-line resources for hints and tutorials. I would like to find some local musicians to play with.

I have to work a couple of days this week due to using up my holiday allocation. At least the traffic will be light when I drive in. I'll just wish everyone a happy midwinter feast and an intruiging new year.

There's been a little bit of mist/fog about in the mornings this week. Some people seem to think that this means they must have their fog lights on. The Highway Code is quite clear on this. Fog lights (front and rear) are only to be used when visibility is 'seriously reduced', i.e. when people other drivers would not be able to see you clearly otherwise. I have emailed the local radio stations in the vain home that they might mention this on their traffic reports when they are saying there is fog about.

Don't get me started on those people who always have their front fogs on to try and intimidate others. And what is it with those who drive around with front fogs and side lights? Trying to make up for their general dimness?

I've been running my main PC on Linux for about 18 months now and don't miss Windows at all. I still have 98 on the second PC, but only so the kids can play some simple games, and use XP at work. I quite often find that I miss certain Linux facilities when using XP, but rarely the other way around. I've seen all the hype about Vista, but there's nothing that really grabs me. Why should I pay hundreds of pounds for something that will place so many restrictions on what I can do? It's possible to get all the 3D tricks on Linux if you want them and have the necessary hardware.

Ubuntu has served me very well. Almost all the software I need can be easily installed from their repositories. They also have have friendly forums (fora?). I still need to work out how to do a few things, like transferring home video to DVD, but I'm generally happy. I still don't think it's suitable for everyone. Games will be an issue for the forseeable future, but I don't play them.

In some cases Linux can be easier to install than Windows. I am tempted to try installing something lightweight, like Xubuntu, on an old PC I have to see if it could be made useful.

What I could do with is a more powerful PC. My old Duron 1200 is getting on and I have to wait a while for some things to run. I've put out some requests for certain items that would let me upgrade this PC to keep it running a while longer. To use the nice new stuff, like dual-core processors will mean starting from scratch. A faster CPU, some more memory and a graphics card could transform what I have without costing a fortune. If my request on Freecycle gets answered it may even cost nothing as people may have them hanging around after they upgraded. I have my own pile of old hardware that I have offered, but there are no takers yet. Some of it may have to be dumped, but I will re-use what I can.

A couple of culture giants have died recently. Today I heard that Joe Barbera left us. Apparently H&B produced over 3000 episodes of 300 cartoon series. I probably saw a fair few of them in my youth. Most of them were not that great. The Flintstones was just a cartoon sitcom. They pioneered the use of standard body parts to make for rapid production, but it made it less interesting to watch. I guess the same sort of thing is happening now with computer animation. Once they generate the characters they can churn out hundreds of episodes for not much money. The greater legacy is in things like Tom and Jerry, one of my all-time favourites. The combination of animation and music has rarely been matched. The nearest equivalent would be the excellent Animaniacs. I enjoyed an Xmas edition of Pinky and the Brain with my kids just yesterday.

The other recent loss was Ahmet Urtegun whose Atlantic Records brought us so much great music, including the mighty Led Zep (nice Xmas card there).

At least both those men lived long enough to achieve their full potential. Nobody gets to live forever, but some leave a legacy that endures.

Many years ago I decided to upgrade the 8GB drive in my PC to something bigger. I went for a 46GB IBM Deskstar. Probably cost about £200 at the time. This worked happily for many years, but did get a bit flakey in later life, so I replaced it with a massive 250GB that cost about a quarter as much. I also bought an external USB drive case from ebuyer. I used this to copy data off some older drives, but when I tried the Deskstar it didn't seem to recognise it. The drive case is made by Safecom. It's basic, but was fairly cheap. I just had a look at the buyers' comments here and found one by Ron Hope suggesting that for a Deskstar you should ignore the jumpers settings to set master/slave etc and just remove the jumpers. The manual said the drive had to be set to master. That got it working straight away. So thanks Ron and perhaps people will find this article if they have similar problems.

Last meeting of the year and I think there were nine of us. Average attendance is up significantly this year. There was the usual chat and then Malcolm, suspiciously smartly dressed, gave a little presentation on the benefits of SCO Caldera Linux to ruthless corporate dictators. This turned out to be an excuse to commit serious violence on innocent manuals and CDs. Power tools were used. As a piece of performance art this was great fun. Certainly a nice way to end the year.

James (going to do your page soon?) turned up late after his Java teaching duties to make a rare appearance. This turned out to be very productive as he managed to get a wireless card working on Mandriva for someone whose name I either don't know or have forgotten.

The free timestamping service I mentioned to Ian can be found here.

I'm not at all religious, and not particularly 'spiritual', but I have an interest in other cultures. I found out that some buddhist monks would be performing some of their ceremonies at a local school and thought it was worth a look. I took my daughter along for the experience. It was more like being in church than a musical event. The monks came out to the sound of some huge horns that really shook the hall, carrying pictures of the Dalai Lama and of their own spiritial leader, a young boy who is in the 'care' of the Chinese authorities. Some of the monks from the Tibetan monastry escaped to India and founded a new one there.

They performed various ceremonies. Some were just chanting and meditation, others had dancing in incredible costumes with some great masks. The 'music' consisted of the big horns, some smaller versions, cymbals, drums and bells. Not a great deal of melodic variation and not the sort of thing I would want to listen to in isolation, but atmospheric. A British woman gave an introduction to each rite to give us some idea of what was going on.

The audience of maybe 150(?) looked to consist of many people who looked as you might expect a British buddhist to look, with an average age of older than me. I enjoyed it as a novelty and a cultural experience that I might only otherwise see on a TV documentary. I could appreciate the dedication needed to memorise the routines.

The day before I indulged in some more familiar musical exploration in a housewarming come jam session at Malc's new place, an isolated bungalow in the depths of Bedfordshire. I had a good drum and played my guitar (too) loudly. I was quite pleased with the sound my Gordon Smith+Peavey were making. I don't often get the chance to crank it up. I also took part in a 'play a song on the acoustic' session, but was frustrated by not being able to play any whole songs, let alone sing along. I need to play more at home to learn some new tunes. I have my heart set on getting an acoustic to encourage me to just pick it up and play.

As I was doing a fair bit of driving around I recorded some more traces for OSM to fill in some gaps in the rural roads.

One of the pet hates of motorists over the last few years has been the use of wheel clamps and the extortionate fees charged for getting them removed. Up until now we have been unaffected, but this week it caught up with us.

My other half went shopping in Stevenage with a friend. They parked in the free carpark by the cinema, intending to use one of the restaurants there later. When they got back with the shopping they had been clamped. They obviously look out for people parking and walking away then pounce, without giving those people any opportunity to remove their cars. Of course they charged a lot to remove it. As it's private land there doesn't seem to be much chance of appealing. It would be easier against a council.

I can appreciate that carpark owners do not want their spaces taken up by people who are not spending their money there, but this response seems to be totally out of proportion. We will not be going to that cinema or the nearby restaurants again in the near future and will let them know this. Bedford and Hatfield are not much further away. If either of my readers is likely to go there then I hope they heed this warning.

I needed to get that out of my system. Meanwhile, I've managed to read a fair few books this year. I've been inspired to re-read my Douglas Adams collection. I've just completed the Hitchhiker 'trilogy'. I'm not really reviewing them, but I'm logging them all on my book list. The Amazon links will all contribute to the school if you use them. I'm hoping that my affiliate links will raise a few quid from Xmas shopping.

I've been participating in the OpenStreetMap project for a few months now. I've added quite a few roads and footpaths, mostly around Arlesey. Recently they have revamped the map, so it looks and works a lot more like the Google one. Last night I was at the work Xmas party near Covent Garden. I printed off the OSM map of the area and it was complete enough for me to plot a course back to King's Cross Station. There were a few street missing, but I didn't get to add them due to lack of time and wariness about hanging around dark London streets with a GPS. I did try getting a signal on the train to plot the track, but the carriages don't seem to allow for that. Ironically, I was listening to David Bowie's Earthling album on the PDA and up came the track 'Looking for satellites'. I did manage to plot a bit more of Arlesey when I got back and that has been uploaded. It may be a while before those updates appear on the map.