That Weasel stopped by to announce that there would be four more pre-release awards ceremony vids for the Rockets on Prisoner awards this week. The first one is up now – it’s Best Musical Score, and the download is available, as usual, in 3 formats, two sizes each. Go check out the nominees – and the winner!

Z pointed out another pair of vids for download at Halo2forum.com – there’s a Halo 1 campaign montage from Steve the Plank (WMP9, 21.9 mb), and the 4th montage from DaY (WMP9, 81.4 mb). I found the torqued aspect ratio of the campaign vid to be hard to watch, but others liked the effects. The montage is lots and lots and lots of snipes. Check ’em out!

Nice. The taped Peter Jackson speech about how excited he is to be a part of the Halo movie, shown at X05 last week, is now available at GameTrailers.com – it’s the same clip as JeuxFrance was serving, except without the JF watermark. You can grab it in QuickTime or WMP9 formats. Thanks, Mr.Cynical.

Yesterday, we mentioned Clan Hops Episode 3, a 12-minute-long jumping vid that originally appeared at High Impact Halo, and was released in hi-res form at halo2forum.com. Today, it passed our Movie Peer Review Rating System, so we’re putting up a copy, as well. (The mid-size version passed, but there’s no reason not to give you the high-res version, so I’ve snagged the copy that H2F was hosting as a base.) It’s available in WMP9 format (61.2 mb), or QuickTime format (58.9 mb). It’s long – but there are LOTS of cool jumps in there!

Foo Mo Jive writes to point out that Podtacular Episode 12 has been posted – and some changes have been made. The website has been redesigned, and there’s a new store where you can buy Podtacular t-shirts. And the shows themselves have been split up into three separate, roughly-half-hour chunks, to make downloading easier (and updates more frequent). Go check it all out!

Stuntmutt speculates about the identity of Halo character in the upcoming DOA4 in today’s One One Se7en.

Theo Prins dropped off a new sketch the Master Chief – you’ll find it on his gallery page. He continues to floor me.

Rain 501 points out a UK-based Halo 2 4v4 CTF competition, to take place on October 21. MatchBox360 is hosting this; you must be a UK resident to enter, it will be played over XBL. There is no word about prizes.

Eleven new pieces added to the Fan Fiction section today – go read!

You gotta love what gets harped on when Microsoft is involved… there’s a story over at Stuff.co.nz focusing on the fact that the server farm that renders Weta’s special effects is running Linux. Why is this news? Oh, because it means that Linux will play a major role in an upcoming Microsoft movie. Whee… Thanks to [HC]D-Man for the heads-up.

Quikthnkr has put together a rather sizeable machinima – it’s called Death by Misadventure, and it’s just over 25 minutes long. It has a number of things going for it – kickass original music (John Gold‘s opening song ‘Randy’ is GREAT, and Katy Mae‘s ‘Safe and Sound’ was a snug fit for the end of the film), a solid plot, good filming and some fun humor. We’re hosting BitTorrent downloads of the original WMP9 version of this film (95.2 mb) and a re-encoded QuickTime version (92.2 mb) – if you can play it, the quality on the WMP9 is better, though the QuickTime is certainly watchable. Please – remember to leave your BT windows open, to share the love! Update: If you want (or need) a direct download link for this (rather than a BitTorrent link), Roland has generously provided one (WMP9 version only). Update 2: Breakpoint has made a copy of the WMP9 available, as well.

A couple of new vids over at Halo2Forums – ReMoRs3 created a vid using Dest’s Halo 2 Custom Edition mod – it shows Halo-style weapons on Halo 2’s Lockout. It’s just ReMoRs3 running around – there’s nobody to shoot – so you can’t get a great sense for damage adjustments… but you can see the battle rifle turned into an assault rifle, and grenade triggers shifted back towards how they were in Halo. 29.4 mb, WMP9 format. There’s also a high-res version of Clan Hops Episode 3 (lower-res versions were posted over at HIH a couple of days ago) – some great jumps. 61.2 mb, WMP9 format. Check ’em out!

IGN has posted a Halo Triple Pack Guide, in honor of the recently released Halo Triple Pack (Halo, Halo 2, and the Multiplayer Map Pack, all bundled nicely). Lots of resources, all gathered in one place… the only real downside is that it’s Insider-only. Give it a look if you have a membership, though! Thanks to misteryellow for the heads-up.

Rodney Campbell points out some coverage of the Australian WCG national final, including pics and vids, over at XboxZone.com.au (Registration is required to download the vids, but the writeup is open for all.) World championships coming next month in Singapore – check out the Aussie competition!

Elnea posted a small sketch yesterday – a Red vs Blue Pirate, of all things. Check it out!

You might remember the Night to Unite auction on eBay last year, to benefit a number of children’s groups – they’re doing it again, and one of the items this year is a 6-foot Master Chief statue. Current bid is $630, but I’m guessing it’ll get quite a bit higher before the auction ends on the 13th. Check out all the stuff- it’s for good causes! Thanks, Archaos. Update: hehe – Clay points out that the number of items for sale in the entire Night to Unite auction is a Halo-relevant 117. Queue Twilight Zone music…

The 117 Words competition came to a close last Friday – and tonight, the winners (and lots and lots of special mentions) have been announced. I must say – this contest was a fun one, not least because I had to do very little work for it… the quality of material this generated from fans was astounding. Go read Jillybean’s post (with the shout-outs, both from her and from Stuntmutt), and then settle in and read the stories themselves. They rock. (These were just the ones judged to be the top 117 entries – there were many more entered.) And congratulations, of course, to the winners! (Maybe Frankie’s first place finish will help him beat that flu after all…)

The Bungie Weekly Update is now up – Frankie’s sick, so Sketch has posted in his stead. A nice summary of the week’s activities, including stuff on the Halo movie, stuff on the DOA connection, more moving-in stuff, a quick update on the (still upcoming) charity auction, a REALLY disturbing ‘Frankie’s Dreams’ pic from AGDTinman… and the REAL weekly update (with lots of the same info) actually written by Frankie, on his deathbed. Sniff… he was a good man… we’ll miss him…

Last week, In-Fusio got the rights to Halo mobile games and ringtones. Today, Stuntmutt points out the logical end result of this scenario in the most recent One One Se7en.

Fifteen new stories up in the Fan Fiction section – should give you some nice weekend reading!