Well both are finally up. My plan is to update both these places as often as I can,especially when I'm on the road. Like backpacking in South America this June, July and hopefully though to August :) so if all goes to plan there should be nightly photos, video and blog entries. Can't wait!

The site is atwww.explore-the-planet.com/

Blog is found atblog.explore-the-planet.com/

Also at the moment updating with a lot of Africa stuff, so things like Photos and Video.

Well hello fellow gamespoters it has been a while since I have actually posted anything here. Let just say **** has happened. Recently finished year 12 last year, as for what I'm going to do for the next couple of years I'm not sure. My current plan is too just work as save up to do a lots of traveling. And thats exactly what Ive been doing. Traveling...

On the 27th of Nov, myself and 42 other people from around Australia left out of Brisbane Airport, destination being Kenya and Tanzania, Africa. And what a great experince it was. In the 3 weeks that we where over there we hangout with the children of Kajiado Children's Home, an orphanage of about 50-70 children in the small town of Kajiado, Kenya. Taught 3 classes of about 20 kids at Kaloleni Primary School at Moshi, Tanzania. And then on the same day fun the sport carnival for the school of Kaloleni, Mandela and Azimio Primary Schools. Then the next day began the climb to the summit of Kilimanjaro other wise known as the roof of Africa. I can say there is no greater felling then knowing at that point of time you are now the highest person in all of Africa. After the 6 day climb (4 days up and 2 down), we had a 3 day safari at Tarangire, Ngorongoro Crater and Manyara National Parks seeing all but one of the big 5, that being the Leopard. And to top that all of 3 days and 3 nights on the tropical island of Zanzibar, in which activities include; snorkeling, eating and partying :)

Me and my little buddy

Showing off some Australian cred

Waving goodbye to the Maasai

Celebrating our win

Walking into the clouds

Standing at 4700m and still have another 1200m to go

Yes this is still Africa

Standing on the Roof of Africa at 8:36am, 5895m high. After 10hr of climbing

Some Giraffe all standing in a line

Elephant

Couple of Clown Fish in their home

And there you have have it whats been going on. As for whats next I'm looking at Ecuador and Peru, South America

One more thing I have started a this blog which you can find herebe sure to follow :)

Matty

Yes I got it... I got a 60gig Xbox 360 and boy was it was worth it. I got it for a pretty good deal too. The 360 was $399 and then I got 4 $80 games for a extra $50, are they trying to lose money or what. What are the games that I got you may ask, well they are; Lego Indiana Jones and Kung Fu Panda which are the 2 official games that Microsoft adds, the 2 that JB-HI throws in are; Rainbow Six Vegas 2 and brothers in Arms. I also bought Gears of War 2 separate which is a very good game and Mums got me Halo 3 for Christmas (you can't have an Xbox without Halo), which is for the best as I want to play Halos 1 and 2 before 3 (probably should have done that with Gears 2 also).

Now that I have both of the 2 main HD consoles I can now compare them. First off thank you Sony for allowing any old laptop hard drive work with the PlayStation and adding a wireless adaptor for online in unlike MS where you have to spend $130 for the Xbox adaptor. As for MS thanks for taking complete control over the system making sure that every game can be installed and you can have a custom soundtrack over any game and making Xbox Live just one login name, looking at you Metal Gear Online and your Konami ID's and then having to make a Game ID after, what's up with that. So as most of you already know every console has there ups and down whether it be the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 or even the Wii.

 Come on now play nice.

Another thing that happened over the past week was I went down to Game On which showed the history everything from SpaceWar! one of the first known computer games made in 1962 to Halo 3. Including the first ever Pong game on the Magnavox Odyssey from 1972. There were also a lot of arcade machines from the likes of Puck Man, Space Invaders and Asteroids my favourites being Discs of Tron and Star Wars.

Anyway I think I'm going to get back to more Gears of War 2, Matty out.

One more thing my you can add my Xbox Live Gamertag, which is Matty44m.

Well it's been a while since I wrote one of these blogs, about a full school term. And that exams have almost finished, just one more to go one Friday I actually have some spare time. Which is I can tell you is a hell of a lot better than looking at numbers and equal signs and what not for the past week studding for a Math and Physics Test. Now I just have one more day to go which is a practices QCS writing test which is to see what our OP could be at the end of year 12.

So with one more day of year 11 to go till I get a week off till I do some work experience which I'm going to be doing at another architecture place. So I do that for a week and after that, 7 weeks of holidays YAY!

Game on which is a place where you "play thought the history of videogames" which looks pretty cool. Where they have games from the old arcade machines like; Asteroids, Space Invaders, Centipede, Ms Pac Man, Missile Command, Metal Slug X, Discs of Tron and offcourse Star Wars. Then there some from the 90's and 00's like; Bob the Builder (PS) (can't wait to play that one), Ridge Racer (PS), Virtua Tennis 2 (Dreamcast), Mario Superstar Baseball (GC), Super Smash Bros (GC), Lego Star Wars (Xbox), Jak and Dexter (PS2), Doom (PC), Zelda (N64), Final Fantasy VII (PS), Mario 64 (N64) and many more full list here I think there about 100+, well that's what the site says. So I'm most definitely going to get my Game On at Game On. I'll post something here after.

It also looks like I might be getting a Xbox 360 instead of Rock Band this is mainly because its Rock Band 1 not 2 and the 360 is only around $100 or $150 more and I would get more out of a new console being able to play with friends online and what not.  Instead of paying $250 to $300 for some plastic instruments that I can only really play with 2 games.

And that's pretty much it. See you online and maybe on even on Xbox Live.

Matty

Hello Again, I thought it would be a good idea to right another blog post about what's been happing, as that seems to be what a lot of them have been about lately. First there was the driving up to Mackay which is a 12+hour drive from the Sunshine Coast (lucky I got that iPod earlier). After staying around there for a week seeing family and things like that it was another 2 hour drive to Airlie Beach to put the boat in to see the Whitsundays. A very nice place about half way down the Great Barrier Reef, as you will see by the photos.

Meet up with one of the locals named George which is Hump Headed MaoriWrasse that lives around Hook Island, he was there last time we went which was 2 years ago.

Another picture of George showing just how big this fish is. And me giving him a pat on the back.

one the way back to Hamilton Island we met up with a group of 3 Humpback Whales; the Mum, Calf and another one(possibly the previous calf). When we sore them we decided to follow them around to get some pictures for a while. Until the mum came up the take a breath about 3 meters behind the boat and that when it was decided that it was about time to leave them alone, because you don't want a 10m+ whale hitting the side of a 7m boat. As you may know whales are pretty strong animals, may have something to do with being the largest animal on the planet. Anyway as we were just about to leave the Calf came up just to the side of the boat, with its fin hitting the side of the boat resulting in him freaking out and diving down rocking the whole boat and here's a picture that was taken.

We then went back to the hotel on Hamilton Island, which is a very nice hotel with a very good view.

Lovely. There were also a lot of Sulphur-crested Cockatoos of which we have one a home called Percy. Anyway in the island they tell you to shut your doors as the birds will get in and take whatever food they can find and on the way up in the elevator (because they where outdoor ones with the windows) one of the birds was sitting on the railing with one foot and the other holding a piece of pizza which was quite funny to see. Queue picture of bird.

Funny looking birds aren't they. And then we drove all the way home in time for school and that's pretty much it.

Well it's been a while since I have been on Gamespot or played a game for that matter. The past couple of weeks have been crazy so much stuff going on. Assignments coming out of my ears and I still have 2 more to do. A week long school camp which was set at the worst possible time to have a camp not to mention the really bad flu that I got on camp and then got sent home because of it. And then there was a funeral that I need to go to and now the mid semester exams have started. What a long couple of weeks. Yes, quite a lot happing, so I thought now that the weekend is here and I have a small break of free time I might update my blog with some more useless rambling from me.

So yes assignments coming up of my ears, that sounds like that would hurt so good thing that didn't happen. But there were a lot of them, one for English and that was a speech about pomes. Oh, how nice pomes. Another is 2 different ones for IPT, which is computer coding and things like that. The first one was for robotics we had to build and then code a robot made out of LEGO to do various tasks and that other that I have yet to complete is. I have to design an expert system which is a set of questions that when asked well eventually get to an answer. Like flags "dose the flag have strips?" and the next question would be "dose that flag have a white strip in the middle?" and so like that. For the expert system were using HTML and JAVA. Along with those 3 there were also 2 for graphics, 1 for physics, maths and that all I can think of.

Camp, leadership camp I have to say it was pretty good for the 2 days that out of bed. Somewhere between day 2 and 3 I came down with a bad case of the flu, resulting in staying inside small cabin in bed for all of day 3 and evenly going to the doctor near the end of the day, then getting driven home by the principle of the school. And then staying in bed for another 2 days and I still have it, well the cough and runny nose at least. The reason that it was the worst time to have camp and the flu didn't help, EXAMS where coming next week.

Then to make matters worse our family got the news that a really good friend of ours had died, which I had known pretty much all my life and we had to go down to his funeral. It wasn't the best that I could get after getting home from camp because there I've a lot of good memories with Fish (that's his nickname) like camping on Frazer Island and things like that.

And now begin the Exams and with it lots and lots of study YAY! Got an exam for English, IPT, Marine, 2 for Math B (KP and MP) then a Graphics one which means I get Thursday and Friday off because I don't have anything on those days, so that's a plus.

I also just bought my first iPod, a iPod Touch 32gig. But I brought it only to find out that in about 2 or so weeks there was going to be a new one out, which is thinner and has actual volume buttons and it's cheaper. So I'm not too happy about that, but that what happens when you buy something like an iPod or a computer something new and sometimes cheaper will come out after a month. And I know was talking a lot before about getting a iPhone, well that not going to happen after looking more into the planes. You see thing like $45 over 2 years and only 100mb of internet usage a month and they don't get any cheaper.

Well once again another long post just passing 700 words as I type this, anyway ill leave it at this.

Cya

Here's another trophy update and it a big one, a lot more than last time. Almost got the all mighty Platinum trophy, just a couple more to go. Still haven't manage to get anything in PixelJunk Eden

Skilled Fortune Hunter

Proficient Fortune Hunter

Advanced Fortune Hunter

Professional Fortune Hunter

Senior Fortune Hunter

Expert Fortune Hunter

Crack Fortune Hunter

Master Fortune Hunter

Brutal Slugger

Stealth Attacker

Steel Fist

Steel Fist Expert

100 Headshots

Dyno-Might!

Expert Dyno-Might

Run-and-Gunner

Hangman

Grenade Hangman

Survivor

50 Kills: 9sFs - 9mm

50 Kills: Micro - 9mm

20 Kills: Wes - 44

30 Kills: MP40

50 Kills: AK-47

50 Kills: M4

30 Kills: Dragon Sniper

50 Kills: Moss - 12

30 Kills: Mk-DNI

Charted! - Easy

Charted! - Normal

_____________________________________________________________

Bronze: 42

Silver: 11

Gold: 1

Platinum: 0

Total: 54

Level 3: 75%

Well on a while ago my family bought the house next door, I think it may of been 2 weeks ago. And because I have my birthday on the 3rd last month Mum said that I could invite some friends over on the weekend and do a overnight party thing in the empty house. I couldn't pass up an opportunity to take a few TVs, 360s and a PS3 and play games, watch movies and talk for a hole night, as I'm probably not going to be able to do something that that for a while. It's not every day you get to have a party in an empty house.

So on Friday I got everyone together, 5 people in total and all came over on the bus. Ended up having 2 TVs, 3 360s, 1 PS3, lots of soft drink and pizza, and I mean lots. What a good night that was. What we did was played a lot of Halo 3 as the PS3 does not really have a really top notch LAN multiplayer game other than Warhawk. After that played a lot of Pain and boy did that go over well, instant hit. If there is one game that you play when you have a group of friends over it is Pain. Then watch a couple movies before falling asleep at around 3am.

The funny think that one of my friends came just after 3:30 after everyone was asleep; this was because that was when he finished work. But a school when he was telling us that he was going to be coming at 3 we were all thinking that he was joking so all the doors were locked. But no he came and being the idiot that he is didn't knock on the doors or window to let him in, so he just slept outside in the cold dark night only to wake up seeing him staring at whist sleeping.

Over all a very fun night and would like to do it again, but now we have rented out the house so that probably won't happen for a while. Oh well.

Matty

Well it was a while ago that I had a Trophy Update. Might have something to do that there are none to collect, at least they seem to be coming more often now, YAY. I tried to get some in PixelJunk Eden, but I can't work out what to do and the ones that I know how to get are hard and are going to take a long time to get. I'll keep trying thou. Hopefully those Pain and Warhawk Trophies come soon, but some of the Pain and Warhawk look like they're going to be kind of hard to get. However I have managed to get some in Uncharted Drakes Fortune and here they are.

First Treasure

Beginner Fortune Hunter

Novice Fortune Hunter

Enthusiast Fortune Hunter

Intermediate Fortune Hunter

Relic Finder

Brutal Brawler

Brutal Expert

Headshot Expert

10 Headshots

30 Headshots

50 Kills: PM - 9mm

_____________________________________________________________

Bronze: 19

Silver: 3

Gold: 0

Platinum: 0

Total: 23

I thought I might just write a short blog post letting you know that there is a Gamespot beta on with a new layout on which looks pretty cool. It good to see the people behind Gamespot trying out different things. The beta can be found at...

Gamespot Beta

I think it about time to change my banner.