The Wii Forecast channel is up and running in North America, giving you constant access to weather conditions around the world right from your system. The interface is very slick and offers a remarkably intuitive way to check the temperature, but that's not why I love it. No, the reason I spent 15 minutes "looking at the weather" this morning was because I was playing god.

Using the motion sensitive controls, choose the map view and zoom out as far as you can. See the world sitting there amongst the stars? Grab onto it with the cursor and give it a spin. There's nothing like spinning the whole world as if it were a top. Well, except maybe zooming in to Sardinia and pinching it before whirling the globe around once more. I do love checking the weather conditions.

And in just a few days (Dec 22) a "trial version" of the Wii Opera browser will be available to download. Grab it while you can, then start surfing the web with the wiimote. Your first stop: WiiCade, of course.