4:30PM Sydney Time, Friday - Today was a day for adventure, as we game journalists– Ha, just kidding. We nerds with websites were herded onto a bus and schlepped to Microsoft's Sydney office for lots of talk about Xbox 360's penetration in the Australian market. (In fairness, there is some emo kid here shooting video for a Mexican television show—exa tv?—who doesn't look like a nerd. He does look like an emo kid, however; We all bear our own burdens.)

Here's what I gathered about the Xbox and 360 in Australia: Doing pretty well. So there's that. The overall numbers are pretty small—something like 30k units at launch—but we're talking about a country with 24 million people, so it's not too shabby. More impressive is the Live adoption rate: 40%. Major Nelson is suitably proud.

More Xbox Live news after the jump. (Spoiler: One of the games shown was not Street Fighter II. But the other one was.)

Asia Pacific honcho for Microsoft Alan Bowman gave us the numbers I wrote about oh-so-many words ago. He's got a lot to be happy about, as Xbox and Xbox 360 have done very well in his markets (Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore; Oh, and Australia) but for all that he still has his fair share of Kool Aid-fueled delusion. ("I think we're still on a path to success in Japan.")

There was a uncomfortable hush in the room after the more animated of the two enthusiasts from Hong Kong used the term "Gaystation" with inscrutable irony.

Major Nelson spoke for a bit about Xbox Live development. He said background downloading works in the lab—now they just have to figured out how to offer it in such a way that it doesn't erode the gaming experience. Since Microsoft is so adamant that 360 games work just fine without a hard drive, I don't see what the problem is! (Oooh, burned.)

They're also working on optimizing the Marketplace interface. It's not bad yet, but it's going to get crowded soon. No idea when that'll be pushed out, but I got the impression that it'll probably be a few months.

Ol' Nelson sort of flipped out when Gaystation asked why there wasn't a web browser available, polishing that old chestnut about "two foot" and "ten foot" experiences. That's fine. We get it. But could we just have the fucking browser (and mouse and keyboard support) and let us worry about the sub-optimal experience? Besides, don't you guys still sell WebTV boxes? (OMG, burned again.)

Anyway, you could tell it was a sore point. It must get frustrating to have to defend the indefensible as part of your job. (I know; I have to explain why we keep Crecente around all the time.)

Then they showed us games: Street Fighter II and Cloning Clyde.

SFII you know; I'm not going to get into it. But it's got online play and all that good stuff, including the typical Live Arcade achievements. Also, while perusing some of the internal documents handed to me by a staffer, I discovered an Easter egg: Playing the game all the way through once unlocks CPU Battle Mode. Or something like that—maybe you had to beat it with every character or something. Anyway, there's your gaming journalism, with secret internal documents and everything.

Cloning Clyde looks alright, though. It's a fighting/action platformer in side-scrolling 3D that includes a lot of puzzles that require you to make clones of your ass-baring-gown-wearing Clyde—each of which ('whom?' Such deep questions this art form engenders!) can be controlled one at a time to solve puzzles. But here's the best part: 8 player co-op mode. Hooray for co-op! (I didn't get a good picture of the gameplay. Sorry about that.)

Lastly, Major Nelson mentioned that the Xbox Live Marketplace Portfolio Manager has been trying to track down one Douglas E. Smith, the creator of Lode Runner. Apparently the Portfolio Manager really wants to get Lode Runner on Live—but they can't find the author, who holds the license. I told them our readers love a good challenge, so let's track down this Douglas E. Smith and let him know Microsoft wants to make him a lot of free money.

I'm serious. If you have any clues to his whereabouts (this Wikipedia article is a start), let me know. (joel@gawker)

Tomorrow: The water balloon fight!

Oh god, and I almost forgot. Being a savvy traveller, I picked up yesterday's jeans off the floor for another wear when a fucking spider fell out of them! I'm not freaked out by spiders, per se—they're one of my favorite species of fluid-filled robots—but I really, really don't like them in my pants.

Even worse, I popped a glass over him, intending to take a picture later to identify his species, and when I returned to my room-serviced room, the spider was gone. Will I find the desiccated husk of a maid inside the TV stand? Oh god, is it still in the room?