CyReN stopped in to announced a Halo 1 tournament in Canton, Michigan – 5 hours of old-school gaming (original Xboxes and Dukes, if interested, supplied) on July 12. Swing by his post for more info! (Louis Wu 15:03:30 UTC)

ElusiveEagle519 noticed that Gamestop is currently offering 12-month LIVE cards for $39.99, a full $10 off their normal price. Wanna get your matchmaking skills in order before ODST comes out? Here’s a cheap(er) way to do it!(Louis Wu 15:02:55 UTC)

nomis78 let us know about a Halo 3-based interactive desktop highlighted at Lifehacker – all of the HUD features actually do things! According to the creator, it should be available for download later this month. Check it out!(Louis Wu 15:02:30 UTC)

What happens on Fridays? Oh, yeah, Bungie releases its Weekly Update – and this Friday is no different. This one focuses heavily on Crater[night], one of the maps you’ll be getting well acquainted with once you get your hands on ODST’s Firefight mode. It’s not all that’s in there, though – there’s also some important Render-To-Video beta news (they’re deleting ALL rendered videos on Monday, so download the ones you want NOW – and also on Monday, ALL Bungie Pro subscribers – not just those who paid for it – will be able to use the service), and some Haloscreenshots.com contest info, and a few other tidbits. Including some awesome sound clips from Johnson. Go read! (Either at Bungie.net, or here, in our Weekly Update Archive.)(Louis Wu 01:16:59 UTC)

I received an email from mick, a friend of Marissa’s dad, Mike. (Marissa, if you haven’t been reading long, is a little girl with infantile spasms; her dad started a program whereby Fairfax, a stuffed bunny, has been visiting people and places around the world (and getting photographed doing it) to raise awareness about Marissa’s illness.) mick came up with the idea of creating a Gamer’s Alphabet – a small book which would (in theory) contain a set of illustrated gamer words. (There is a conversation over at fazyluckers that might help explain what’s involved.) If you’d like to help, swing by and sign up – you’ll need to tell Chris, who approves all members, that mick sent you. There are so many amazing artists in the Halo community – by adding your skills to this project, you can help create a really cool little book that can be sold to help out Marissa!(Louis Wu 20:19:01 UTC)

Wow – the Halo Uprising hardcover isn’t just doing well – it’s #1 on the New York Times Graphic Books Best Seller List for June 13. (Okay, okay, it’s the Graphic Book list… but still.) Little bit of a writeup, even…(Louis Wu 20:06:14 UTC)

Adam Grumbo of the 405th has interviewed Eric Nylund about writing, Halo, and what else is going on in his life. It’s got some meat, with respect to Halo tidbits we haven’t heard before (mostly where ideas came from and such) – give it a read! Thanks, urk.(Louis Wu 19:31:42 UTC)

wwm0nkey1 grabbed a Hyrule Temple map from ForgeHub and whipped up a ‘Super Smash Brothers: Halo Edition‘ video. Sometimes, you gotta do what you gotta do…(Louis Wu 19:17:06 UTC)

The Aesthetic Artist Interview series is back – well, on its new bi-weekly schedule. The latest interview is with Alec 944, the man who started the whole ‘interview a screenshot artist’ idea in the first place. Go read – and check out some of his work!(Louis Wu 18:13:37 UTC)

Destructoid has put up an Impressions article about Halo Uprising – if you STILL haven’t made up your mind about getting this, go read.(Louis Wu 18:07:39 UTC)

Some goodies from the BungLog™ today:

• The Hope Unto Dawn charity event undertaken by Facility B5D was a success – over $2000 was raised for the Child’s Play charity, and fun was had by a lot of people. A ‘Supertage’ (screenshots, clips, and pics commemorating the event) is linked, along with the thank-you message from the receiving charity. (Actually, the thank-you message redirects to msn.com; I’d guess B5D deep-linking is frowned upon. You can read it by visiting this forum post.)
• A couple of Forge groups got together for some friendly custom games, and wrote the results up, Halo Humpday-style.
• Bryan Simon has another song online – this one is a remix (well, rewrite) of Beyonce’s Halo. If you don’t know the original song, you should listen to it so you know how good Bryan’s tribute is!

What would I do without urk? (Wait, I know… cry less. That man is mean to me.)(Louis Wu 18:04:18 UTC)