One last thing before I hit the road – Stuntmutt created a special Sunday One One Se7en to commemorate his favorite moments of his trip to the US. We wish him all the best getting back home.

The lanfest that has been going on here for a few days will continue for a day or more to come – but unfortunately, it will do so without me. I need to head home to be with my family and responsibilities… but there was a game tonight that was notable for its competitors; we saved two screens, a pre-game screen (100K) and a post-game screen (86K). (This will only have relevance to folks who visit our forum occasionally.) I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – Halo 2 plus good friends plus many hours of gameplay equals some of the most fun you can have with your clothes on. (Even if you’re wearing a pink shirt.)

That’s pretty much the end of updating for the day. An internationally-attended lanfest (notables include Stuntmutt, c0ld vengeance, BOLL, and Canada’s Anton P. Nym, as well as US-based folks like Ducain, Warbow, and Shishka) kicks into full gear – it’s been going for a while now, but the largest number of attendees will be here today. A game of folks who wanted to make it, but couldn’t, was played yesterday – hats off. We’ll be back in full swing updating tomorrow – for now, enjoy your Saturday!

Podtacular! has posted Episode 5 of their Halo 2 podcast – Warlock and custom gametypes head the topics of this hour and a half audio blog. Thanks, Kaizer Bun.

Wow, very cool. Chris Bryan has posted a couple of new renders from his upcoming reel – you can see them here and here. Gorgeous!

WaLKa put together a preview for a new montage – sticks, snipes, sword kills, Halo and Halo 2. Nice to see footage that combines the games! You can find a download link on our forum, and another (larger by far) thread about the vid over at Halo2Forum.com (thanks, Z). 62 mb, MPEG-2 format.

The Weekly What’s Update is now posted at Bungie.net – info about PAX, info about the new playlists coming out in the next couple of weeks, a larger version of Mike Hill’s amazing warthog pic we posted this morning, and a really, really scary pic of Mister Chief in a speedo. (Blame DanteThePoet if your eyes bleed.)

A movie called ‘Untouchable’, by TheHaloGod, cleared our Movie Peer Review Rating System this morning, with a pretty unprecedented score. It’s a montage vid – but the timing is simply astounding, and the music choice is great. As luck would have it, I’m not anywhere near home today (nor will I be for the next couple of days), so the tools available for multiple formats are not what they should be. We’re offering the original WMP9 version, 44.7 mb – quality is fantastic. We’re also offering a somewhat larger, somewhat lower-quality QuickTime version (49.2 mb) – it’s still quite watchable, but not as beautiful as the WMP9. I’d point out the spots that made us all go ‘OMG’ – but they’re more fun to experience on your own. Even if you’re pretty jaded with respect to montages, this is worth watching.

Recently, Red vs Blue enhanced their website with a ‘Featured User’ option – each day, a different member is chosen, and people get to meet someone they might otherwise have overlooked in this community of thousands. Not long ago, one of these Featured Users was Elnea, an eye surgeon who enjoys playing Halo with her son. Exploring her RvB space, I found that she’s quite an artist – with a style I really enjoy. She was kind enough to allow us to spotlight her work here – so check out the Art of Elnea, a page that will grow as time goes along.

Too many people can’t pronounce important words – it’s Stuntmutt to the rescue. Today’s One One Se7en is brought to you by the word Gauss and the Number 7.

We got an art submission this morning that blew me away – I’m not going to have time to process the Miscellaneous Art queue right now, but I thought this should make it out into the community. Mike Hill put together a gorgeous action shot (347K) showing the Master Chief making use of that Warthog winch. He promises more in the future – I’m looking forward to it!

Halo Babies has hit 100! The current strip is a lot of fun – and has spawned three new desktops besides. Go read!

Looks like the Frag Dolls are recruiting – they’re looking for one more member, and will be vetting people at the Penny Arcade Expo this weekend outside Seattle. Details can be found at eToychest – thanks, Rampancy.net.

GameDaily has an article discussing Halo 2’s moneymaking power – almost 200,000 copies of the Multiplayer Map Pack were bought in its first month on the market. (It’s unknown how many have been sold as direct downloads from Xbox Live.) Some of the numbers in the article are suspect; they list 4.7 million total sales for Halo 2, when the numbers were above 6 million in April… but overall, it’s a pretty interesting read. (Halo 2 has been the most-played Xbox Live title every week it’s been on the market – even today, 9 months after release.)

The World Cyber Games announced sponsors yesterday – and the US National Final will take place in New York in two weeks. 40,000 players competed in the US in preliminary events – 186 are in the finals. Of those, 16 will continue on to Singapore to compete for a $400,000 prize pool in the Grand Final – 16 of 800 gamers, pared down from a total of one million, worldwide, this year. Big numbers!

Fourteen new pieces for you in the Fan Fiction section today – go read!

Over at MLGPro.com, there’s an interview with IGS (well, half of them), discussing their loss to TmG in Las Vegas, and playing in general. Entertaining read – check it out! Thanks, 3Suns.

Halo Babies has reformatted its site to fit comfortably on the screen of the Sony PSP – go read about this at the main site, or visit HBabies.net to see it! Gotta love it.

A couple of days ago, the MPRRS processed the second episode in Final Supremacy‘s Lost Stratosphere series. It failed – because one of the reviewers decided that the download took too long. Since this is an absurd criterion for a failing grade, I’ve overridden the score – and the movie is available to you in either QuickTime (38.6 mb) or WMP9 (37.5 mb) formats. It advances the existing storyline of Episode 1 – humans are in a dire situation! Go watch.

Dang. In the craziness that was yesterday, I didn’t get around to posting Wednesday’s One One Se7en – which means you missed some classic corn. Apologies.