Hi Markdelmonte,
I'm doing exactly the same. I've just opened my first bottle of home brew beer this afternoon. Little yeasty but quite pleasent.
If your making beer, the very basic is a 25L 'bin', something for the finished beer to go in, steralising equipment (normally a powder), a peice of rubber tube for a syphon, some sugar, and proabbly some sort of kit (for simplicity).
Some people mention that they use old pop bottles for the beer - this is fine if you want to drink 2 liters at a time! If you are going to use glass bottles, bear in mind that you have to buy crown caps and a device to put them onto the bottle.
Wine is a bit more involved and takes a bit longer too, you will need demi johns, (they look a bit like cider flagons) air locks (those bendy glass things you mention), tonnes of steralisation gear, loads of bottles (corks and corking machiene) and time.
Not trying to put you off wine making, I spent my youth helping mum and dad pick berries, clean and bottle the stuff, it's very rewarding, but a bit of a pain when you have to sometimes wait several months to find out if your brew is any good!
Thanks
Stu