xMixMasterX stopped by with word of ‘Week 5 of Mix Picks‘ up at The Social. These are Bungie.net-hosted film clips, culled by him from a much larger collection. (There are screenshots and descriptions to let you know what you’re in for before you download.) Go see!(Louis Wu 17:28:34 UTC)

mrsmiley let us know that Halo Babies has now set up personal art galleries for all members – if you’re looking for a place to exhibit your Halo-related artwork, check ’em out! (You can probably use ’em for more than Halo art – but hey, we’re a Halo site, so that’s what we focus on.)(Louis Wu 16:53:37 UTC)

Adam Kovic let us know that Inside Halo 15 is now up for viewing on Machinima.com – apparently, they’re not happy with negative reviews, so… IT RAWKS! Just 3 minutes long, and very little Halo news, but hey, whaddaya want from a cave?(Louis Wu 14:18:15 UTC)

Yesterday also saw a new episode of Halo Action Figure Theater – Elnea continues to build the suspense. Go read!(Louis Wu 12:28:49 UTC)

MLGPro.com has kicked off a new video series, the Stride Championship Series. This first episode is a match between Triggers Down and Fatal Images, with commentary by MLG’s Chris Puckett and Sundance DiGiovanni. Great match to watch – close to the finish! Thanks to all who wrote in about this, but Luke Smith, at Bungie.net, was actually first with this one.(Louis Wu 12:27:31 UTC)

Last night, as is true for most Friday nights, Bungie released a Weekly Update – this one contains details on matchmaking playlist changes, more details on upcoming (but not upcoming soon) maps, and a bunch of fan questions, answered. There’s lots of good info in those answers – but the two tidbits that caught my attention the most were a confirmation that Bungie is NOT involved in the development of Peter Jackson’s Halo project, Chronicles, and a statement that there are currently no plans to make the Legendary Maps free, ever. (This latter bit has been said before, but never really this clearly.) As usual, it’s available at both Bungie.net, and in our Weekly Update Archive.(Louis Wu 12:12:19 UTC)

Oh, my goodness. The Guest Artist on today’s Another Halo Comic Strip is… well, geez. Go read. And Groan.(Louis Wu 17:03:45 UTC)

DogCow spent a little time detailing the similarities between Halo’s Library level and ‘If I Had a Rocket Launcher’, a Marathon 2 level released in 1995. He found seven of them – and now that I think about it, he’s right! Makes you wonder if Ferrex was thinking about Marathon 2 during the development of the Library…(Louis Wu 16:02:04 UTC)

Mid7night stopped by to announce that he’s released a scenery package for X-Plane – you can now fly around inside a Marathon-Class cruiser in that game, and try and land a Pelican or Longsword in there. Go look!(Louis Wu 15:20:46 UTC)

Heh – Anton P. Nym noticed that Willamette Week, a Portland, OR weekly newspaper, interviewed Jen Taylor, because of a role she’s got at Portland Center Stage right now… and when the conversation turned to Jen’s experience voicing Cortana for the Halo series, she said that she doesn’t get any fan mail related to the character. Steve (Mr. Nym) wonders if she hasn’t inadvertently opened a floodgate or two…(Louis Wu 15:18:48 UTC)

There’s a fascinating blog post from Mike Caulfield, an administrator at Keene State College in New Hampshire – it posits that games like Halo 3 are better at teaching problem-solving than ‘puzzle’ games. Go read why.(Louis Wu 14:27:39 UTC)

Back in November, we mentioned that Curt Chiarelli, the sculptor that created the molds Joyride used to produce the first Halo action figures, was gearing up to create a limited-edition run of Covenant Grunts – yesterday, we were sent pictures of the final product. I have no idea if any of the 25 models are still available for sale… but at the very least, you can get a good look at Curt’s work. An amazing Halo collectible…(Louis Wu 13:06:40 UTC)

Psychophan7 pointed out a video on CollegeHumor.com that ostensibly relates to the MLG Meadowlands tournament, and the Halo 3 played there. You’d be well advised to pay attention to Psycho’s warning, though.(Louis Wu 13:06:12 UTC)

Bungie has spotlighted the Ascendant Justice blog for its consistently high-quality writing; we’ve mentioned each piece they’ve published as it came out (because we agree with Bungie, the stuff they do is great), but if you missed any of it, this is a great reminder to go back and explore. (The point of this spotlight is to introduce the next community member to populate the ‘Bungie Favorites‘ section of Bungie.net – go see what gametypes, maps, screenshots and films AJ thought was worth your time!) Thanks, Don.(Louis Wu 13:05:32 UTC)

A couple of days ago, JeSteR 343 started up a group at HaloCharts.com, allowing HBO regulars to compare themselves to other HBO regulars. It took a little while for the bugs to be worked out of the grouping system, apparently – but things seem fine now, and there are a number of members already signed up. Go add yourself!(Louis Wu 13:04:07 UTC)

There are nine new pieces in the Fan Fiction section this week – a great step up from the last couple of weeks! One of the stories has some artwork with it – this will be an option for submitters in the near future, but probably not for at least a couple of weeks. (Please don’t try and add artwork to any submissions next week; doing so might get your story deleted. Apologies for that.)(Louis Wu 12:58:13 UTC)

Some of you may have noticed the little cake showing up next to yesterday’s date at the top of the page – it marked the 9th anniversary of the inception of this site. It was blam.bungie.org back then, and in fact just a single, blurry picture stolen from Marathon… but it grew into the site you’re reading now. And I’m still amazed by that. Thanks for the 3288 days of Halo goodness, everyone! (So no, SinisterSamurai, the cake was not a lie.)(Louis Wu 12:46:05 UTC)