Well it's Xmas day, we've watched Doctor Who and eaten too much cake. The hit of the day is our new Nintendo Wii. We thought we might not have one by now due to the general shortage of units in the shops, but one came up in a charity auction at work and I won without paying much over RRP. So far all we have is the standard pack withe Wii Sports plus the Wii Play games that came with an extra remote.

I've not played much with consoles of the last few years and so am very impressed. The motion-sensing remotes are very intuitive and the graphics look fine on out old TV even though it's only using composite video. Sound is in Pro Logic through the surround system and sounds good. The games are fun for all the family. I look forward to getting something more involved, but fear that this will eat up all my free time. There are annoyances such as the safety warning screens that keep appearing warning you to use the wrist straps and take breaks. They get boring fast. I bet their lawyers insisted on them.

I've not been reading up too much on what is available and worth getting for the Wii, so I am open to suggestions. I know a few of my readers have them. Leave comments or email me if you prefer.

I'm still messing with the bass. I've found some good sites for instruction and inspiration. These include:

• TalkBass.com - a very active forum
• GuitarNoise - has a nice series of tutorials, including Pink Floyd's Money
• Beautiful Bass Podcast - Solo player Jeff Schmidt talks about his own playing and that of his friends. Amazing stuff that I don't even aspire to yet.

I've still not done any recording due to on-going problems with Ubuntu and my hardware, but today I discovered that I could record in Audacity as it was using OSS rather than ALSA for input. I might try doing something with that in my days off this week.

I did a few updates on this site recently. I removed some non-working external links and fixed my favicon that was being diverted by the static page plug-in. On the static page front I have added a few more about my music, computer and green activities. Only the first has much content for now. I shall write up the others as I find time. Those pages also allow for comments if you want to use them. I'm happy to take emails, but comments can make the site more useful if they contribute information on the topic.

I'll probably write again soon, but I'll say happy new year now anyway.

Another second Wednesday at the LUG and it's Xmas party time. That meant a huge amount of finger food and another great quiz from Rob. This was enormous fun, but would have been bewildering to non-geeks as we answered obscure Linux questions and tried to match up O'Reilly book covers with their titles. We were a bit down on numbers, but still enjoyed ourselves. What's more, my team won again. I am now the proud(!) owner of a USB-powered clock that also tells me the temperature. It's a USB hubb too, so does have a real use.

We also had an account from James of his participation in a budget car rally to Italy. His team had pictures of several LUG members plastered on the car.

After a long wait I finally received my copy of the latest Radiohead album. I've had the download for a couple of months, but today I got the Discbox. This represents my first new vinyl in over 20 years. There's the standard CD plus another of extra tracks, then the album on two 45 rpm records. It is very lavishly packaged in a heavy gatefold with a slipcase. There's booklets full of the usual 'art'. It's a nice thing to have, but maybe a bit decadent. Annoyingly it's too tall to fit on the shelf with our small vinyl collection. This occupies a mere 30cm as opposed to Malc's impressive collection. This is currently dwarfed by a collection of around 3000 discs that he is minding for a DJ friend. I wish I had time to listen to that much music.

I just figured out why my bookreview plug-in was failing when I clicked on a book. It was expecting the egrep command to be a different place to where it lives on this server. I edited the code and it works now. I'm still working out what details to include in my reviews and how to layout the pages, but I've added my latest couple of reads.

Please excuse the pun. Although I've been playing the guitar on and off for many years I've been thinking about trying the bass for a while. I suspect that I will never be a great guitarist, but I think I might have the makings of a reasonable bass player. There's also the hope of finding more outlets to play as there is probably an excess of guitarists out there. My good friend Lance has been kind enough to lend me a bass that his son started playing, but abandoned. It's a bargain basement job, but enough to start with. I've hardly played bass before, so I have to get used to the differences from a guitar. Firstly it's heavy. Then there's the big left hand stretches required around the low end. My hands are fairly big, but this feels like playing a giant's guitar. There's also the dilema of how to play it. I don't have any suitable heavy-duty pelctrums, so I'm using thumb and fingers. I've already developed a "blister on my thumb". (Thanks to Ian for pointing out the reference). I don't have a proper amplifier, but my old Peavey may do for practice as long as I don't blow the speaker. Played acoustically it can be hard to hear the notes properly.

I'm trying to figure out various well known bass lines. Single line stuff should be fairly easy to follow, but the bass can sometimes be buried in the mix. I've been listening anew to some music to try and hear what the bass player is up to. I'm on the look out for any on-line educational material. I have some old Guitarist magazines that may have some tutorials. I'll have to get around to learning to read bass clef properly as I don't like to rely on tab.

I still have hopes to do some home recording. I've not found a way to get sound input working on my Ubuntu system since it broke, but I would have to get something better at some point anyway. There are dozens of sound cards and interfaces available, but Linux support is patchy. My requirements as I see it would be for something with build-in microphone pre-amps to reduce the amount of stuff I need, although I realise that may involve compromises. I'm not sure I need multiple inputs for now, but it may be possible to expand, e.g. by using several USB interfaces. The Edirol UA-4FA is appealing for £100, but it seems that not all features are supported. An alternative approach occured to me whilst reading about the Zoom H2 portable sound recorder. Apparently it can operate as a USB sound device, but would also be handy for recording away from the PC. There seems to be a sight sterling tax as it costs more here that the US$200 transatlantic price would suggest, but that seems to be a common phenomenon with musical equipment as well as in other markets. You still get a lot for your quid. It seems everything electronic is getting incredibly cheap these days, but you can still pay silly money if you feel the need. Even conventional instruments are available for ridiculously low prices thanks to the low paid chinese workers. I feel sorry for anyone in Europe trying to compete, but there's never been a better time for musicians on a budget.