Well, the original plan involved embarrassing usage of baby pictures – but the Photoshop time simply ran out. I can still take this opportunity to wish CYBRFRK a happy 40th birthday! You’re officially a geezer, dude! (For what it’s worth, mnemesis had a birthday on Thursday. I’m not gonna even MENTION how old he is – cause he’s older than me. Suffice it to say, though, that a new walker from Acme Medical Supply is even now winging its way to his door.)(Louis Wu 22:11:10 UTC)

Sigafoos let us know that The Riot 51 is up – 21 minutes, 8.5 mb, full of stuff. And you’re not listening right now… why? (Louis Wu 22:06:11 UTC)

Twister33547 stopped by to point out a Halo 2 tourney in Lithonia, GA, on June 17th. Check his post for details.(Louis Wu 22:01:53 UTC)

MLG Meadowlands info – GotFrag has a summary, MLG has live (free) video coverage, and more news than you can read.(Louis Wu 21:54:31 UTC)

The submission period for the Halo Zune Giveaway ended last night (much to the chagrin of a number of forgetful people) – we’ve been forced to make some changes to the judging of the entries. Check this forum post for complete details.(Louis Wu 16:27:16 UTC)

Rooster Teeth has posted Red vs Blue Episode 99 for sponsors – and dang, they’re looking to go out with a bang. It’s pretty amazing, overall – if you’re a sponsor, go watch now. If you’re not, wait until Monday, and then watch. One more ep!(Louis Wu 12:11:49 UTC)

Elite TAR took the time to fully translate the recent GameKings video, with comments. If you don’t speak Dutch, this is your best way of finding out what the REST of that story is!(Louis Wu 12:05:31 UTC)

IGN has posted another Insider Head-to-Head feature – this one is is an overall comparison of Halo 2 Vista with Halo 2 Xbox (more extensive than their previous video head-to-head).(Louis Wu 12:02:48 UTC)

Tikirabbit has created a Halo-related entry for a contest at CGSphere.com. Nice work!(Louis Wu 11:59:44 UTC)

Veegie pointed out a model someone has created of the Master Chief – with no armor. Interesting!(Louis Wu 11:58:22 UTC)

Mister Froggy let us know that Halo, Articulated #46 is live; I think everyone who’s played the beta can sympathize with this one.(Louis Wu 11:56:45 UTC)

The Bungie Weekly Update is a marvel to behold; there’s a really nice breakdown of what you’ll find in each version of Halo 3 (subject to change, of course, but getting pretty darned close to final), you’ll find great info about the customization options you’ll face when you fire up Halo 3, and you’ll see some really nice pictures from Forza 2. (If you customize Forza 2 cars for fun, make sure you check the end of the update carefully; you could win a pretty cool car for your troubles.) There was a fight over firstiness on our forum – looks like Plasmoe beat Frankie. As always, if there’s any trouble with B.net for you (or you just want to do some searching), this update is available in our Weekly Update Archive.(Louis Wu 01:47:34 UTC)

sorahn has put up a couple of posters on his wall – these were created from the content to be released on the Zune in a couple of weeks. Check out Cortana, and the Chief. (Yes, these were rendered from the 320×240 versions on the Zune. Amazing, huh?)(Louis Wu 19:43:11 UTC)

Mid7night has released the downloadable version of his Scorpion for X-Plane – swing by his forum post for a link.(Louis Wu 19:40:10 UTC)

Dennis Powers, of HaloMaps.org, pointed out two new maps for Halo 2 Vista from NiTrOuSoXiDe2k (who was part of the H2V team, actually), showing off how easily new maps can be made using the Halo 2 Map editor tools. Check out Beach Battle and Earth City – they both look pretty nice! (While you’re there, check out his views on Halo 2 Vista as a game.)(Louis Wu 19:36:51 UTC)

The latest rumor floating around is that Halo 3 is so huge, as a game, that it can’t fit on a single disc. Joystiq has a story about it, CVG has a story about it, Xbox360Fanboy has a story about it. (Actually, now that I read CVG’s entry again, it’s just a straight report that the art’s out – no speculation there at all. Good for them.) Bungie is pretty amused by the misinterpretation of the artwork; there’ll be more info in tonight’s Weekly Update, but for now, you should understand that one of the discs is a DVD and the other is a 360 executable – sort of like the discs that come with magazines like the Official Xbox Magazine. They’re labeled the way they are because they have to go through test – but they are NOT both game discs.(Louis Wu 18:33:59 UTC)