If you want to keep track of how the 7 billion by 7/7 challenge is going, some folks over at WoW United (yes, a World of Warcraft website) have put together a nice tracking page – time, enemies left, day’s target, and more. (There’s a separate page that keeps track of the official Bungie.net total that’s updated every 15 minutes.) Thanks to DancingJesus for the heads-up. It’s not looking very good – we need a little less than 175 million kills left, and the total over the last 24 hours is less than 15 million. On the other hand, the WoW United page is counting down to the very START of Bungie Day (midnight between the 6th and the 7th) rather than the very END (midnight between the 7th and the 8th), so there is potentially 12% more time than they expected to finish the project. Are you doing your part?(Louis Wu 16:51:38 UTC)

Demented Decoy sent word that he’s been working on a series of screenshot-based comics called ‘Demented Weekly’ – so far, there are 4 issues (well, 3, the first one is more of a preview of the series). They’re downloadable in PDF format, and they follow the antics of the Across the Waves crew in Matchmaking. Swing by to grab ’em! (Louis Wu 14:54:22 UTC)

kr-1426 let us know that Arthur Wellesly has posted this week’s Fan Fic Pick of the Week for June 27 – swing by and read it!(Louis Wu 14:54:01 UTC)

John_117 pointed out a thread he started on Bungie.net, with an interesting picture comparison. (While you should visit his thread here, or his thread there, in order to comment, I’ve archived a copy of the picture for posterity – so that when someone goes back and reads this news post down the road a ways, they’ll know what it’s talking about.) (Louis Wu 14:52:28 UTC)

A few days ago, we mentioned a pretty fun goal the Halo community could shoot for – 7 billion campaign kills by Bungie Day (July 7). GhaleonEB, over at the NeoGAF forums, has been crunching the numbers each day since this challenge started… and it’s not looking good, at the current rate. Unless we pick up the pace, we’re going to fall short by about 50 million kills. The good news is, there are still 10 days left in the challenge, and speeding up the carnage just a little bit could make all the difference. If you haven’t done any Campaign killing recently… why not jump on and contribute? If you don’t care WHERE you play, and you just want the fastest way to build your kill count, jump into Crow’s Nest at Rally Point Bravo, on Easy – seems you can crank out 75 kills in about 3 minutes (then do it again!). Thanks to the whole NeoGAF crew for inspiration – I know we’ve got people on our own forum working on this, but they’re not discussing it.(Louis Wu 19:26:00 UTC)

Today’s edition of Another Halo Comic Strip shows what happens when people with odd minds play too many video games. Careful, ZZoMBiE13.(Louis Wu 19:08:55 UTC)

Obie let us know that a Halo 3 machinima series he started back in December has been updated with a second episode. Little Red Adventures: Episode 2 follows Little Red and Goosey as they continue their search for hacks for Halo 3 – and meet some new friends! Great cinematography, lots of fun. You can watch this on YouTube, or you can download the high-res Divx version (55 mb) from Obie’s site – or you can grab a QuickTime version (57 mb) from us. Enjoy it!(Louis Wu 15:26:08 UTC)

Hawty McBloggy found another Halo-themed 3D Steregraphic video – this one shows some cool action on High Ground, and if crossing your eyes is too much work, there’s a section of the video that let’s you see the action with standard 3D Glasses (Red and Blue lenses). Check it out1(Louis Wu 13:41:45 UTC)

Wil, from Mindquirk Software, let us know that there’s a new version of Xbox Live Friends, with new Halo 3 features (screenshots, recent games stuff) – if you’re running Mac OSX 10.5 (Leopard), grab this! It’s free, and it’s cool!(Louis Wu 13:39:12 UTC)

Bungie’s posted the June 27 Bungie Weekly Update quite a bit earlier than usual (it’s been up since before 4 pm, their time) – it contains more exhortations for anticipation of Good Things on both Bungie Day and PAX Weekend, a recap of the Content License Transfer Tool we mentioned yesterday, new overhead screens of Cold Storage, a matchmamking update, and… something else. As usual, you can read it in our Weekly Update Archive, if you choose.(Louis Wu 23:31:06 UTC)

mrsmiley let us know that he’s joined Pyroman in doing Master Chief Theater 3000 – he’s voicing the part of the Arbiter in Part 4, now up on YouTube. Go watch!(Louis Wu 23:27:08 UTC)

Costume City is selling Rubie’s Master Chief costumes – the Collector’s model is listed as in stock, shipping now. (The two cheaper models are ‘coming soon’.) These are the same costumes we mentioned back in February; that site is listing a July 31 ship date for these items. With the exception of the high-end model, these are definitely the cheapest way to get into a Master Chief outfit you don’t make yourself this year! Thanks, Parabus. (Louis Wu 19:51:32 UTC)

ODSTAdrianFii noticed that Master Replicas has posted a preview of their upcoming Halo 3 material – good looking stuff!(Louis Wu 19:40:41 UTC)

Captain Spark was playing Campaign, and started hearing a bunch of new Grunt dialogue. He’s not coming out of retirement – but he sent along nearly 50 new snippets for our Halo 3 Dialogue Databank. Some of them are simply priceless. Go listen!(Louis Wu 14:37:08 UTC)