Crackshot53 found an old YouTube vid showing off a blimp you can make yourself on any Halo 3 level with a high-enough sky. All you need is a box, a grav lift, and a stationary shield. Check it out!(Louis Wu 20:01:00 UTC)

It’s Tuesday, so it’s time for a Tied the Leader update – and XerxdeeJ doesn’t disappoint. There’s an article called ‘Cattle Drive‘ which looks at how many pounds of steak Bungie owes TTL Gunslingers because of that Steaktacular medal available in Xbox Live Matchmaking (they’re happy to take their payment in living cows, actually)… and there’s a new panel discussion looking at what brings us back to play Halo again and again. (Interesting read!) Go explore!(Louis Wu 16:00:22 UTC)

Back in January, Gary UK and The MrJump released a jumping video, and announced it on High Impact Halo. (Thanks, Psychophan7.) Last night, they visited Halo 3 Forum, and put up the same post – you’d think, if you never saw the HIH post, that it was a brand-new video. Well, I guess the high-res download, originally hosted at Mythica, needed a new home, and now it has one – at FileFront – so that’s a good thing… and it’s a pretty cool vid in any case, so if you haven’t seen it, you should go watch. Some amazing jumps, I thought. (The Rat’s Nest section is a powerful argument for the death barriers Bungie put everywhere – these guys prove that without them, you can pretty much go anywhere, and do it in Matchmaking, which is not really so much fun for non-jumpers.) One of these days, I gotta try that Pit jump to get into the spawn section above the base… thanks to RVideo for noticing the H3F post.(Louis Wu 13:17:19 UTC)

So, remember that US Army Halo 3 Championship that had its own playlist last month? Seems there’s some controversy over the winners… check out Geekpulp for more details. The rules clearly state that the top-ranked eligible player in NZ would be chosen for the regional tournament – but this didn’t happen. Somewhat unfortunate, in terms of what this might mean for future tournaments, I’d say…(Louis Wu 12:53:50 UTC)

Davis Beutler performed ‘Finishing the Fight’ at his school’s talent quest, and put together a video montage of the event. Go watch!(Louis Wu 11:59:13 UTC)

JeSteR 343 recreated Simpsons Rule’s trick with the civilian and the hammer… and got some funny moments out if him. Check it out!(Louis Wu 20:59:26 UTC)

Adam Grumbo and his buddy Spase did a tour of downtown Austin this weekend… wearing some amazing stuff. You’ve seen Adam’s Halo 3 Spartan armor before – but I don’t think most of you have seen the Marine armor Spase is wearing. They’ve been working on this for some months now – and it looks… fantastic. Check out the pics at the 405th!(Louis Wu 15:50:24 UTC)

Halo Action Figure Theater got an update today – Episode 146 has Col. O’Hara and Brad waking up in a strange place. With a strange… person. Hmm…(Louis Wu 15:44:38 UTC)

Ascendant Justice has gone back to look at the visuals present in the Halo 3 terminals, and tried to offer some suggestions as to what they might mean. Some are obvious, some are obscure, but the discussion tries to stick with facts as often as possible, and is a very interesting read. (They’ve used yet another source of HD terminal recordings to do their work for this one – but if you don’t want to deal with a Java downloader, or if you don’t want to be limited to the WMP9 codec, or if your connection doesn’t allow BitTorrent downloads, remember you can always grab these from our Forerunner Terminal Network Archives, in WMP9 or QuickTime.) Thanks to mendicantbias00 for letting us know.(Louis Wu 15:21:56 UTC)

Geekscape Games is running a series of articles called ‘Teabag Prevention’ – they’re there to teach you how to ‘suck less at Halo’. Week 1 was published back on April 22, and focused on the Legendary maps. Week 2, published a day later (heh), contains Sniper Rifle tips. Week 3, from May 2, helps you with a Battle Rifle, and Week 4, posted just a couple of days ago, provides tips on grenade placement. They’re definitely not going for the crystal and linen set with their presentation – but then, that set doesn’t play a lot of Halo, anyway. Go read!(Louis Wu 15:07:43 UTC)

Dennis Powers let us know that Shipwrecked Episode 19 is up – this one ties in the comic series more strongly to the Machinima series that spawned it.(Louis Wu 15:04:40 UTC)

The Halo Wars RTS group over at Bungie.net interviewed Kevin McMullan and JD Smith, the Audio Lead and Senior Audio Designer, respectively, for Halo Wars. It’s a two-parter; Part 1 and Part 2 are both open to the public. (There doesn’t seem to be a ‘theme’ to either part, so I’d guess this was split up for space reasons.) There’s a fun audio snippet (and its source) at the end of Part 2. Thanks to Planet Halo for the heads-up.(Louis Wu 14:57:58 UTC)

Sigafoos reminded us that it’s Monday, so it’s time for another Riot podcast. Number 99 is 14 mb for 34 minutes, covering Halo news, contests, and stuff… and has Sigafoos actually playing Halo during the recording. Funny… or failure? You decide.(Louis Wu 14:48:15 UTC)

The 49th Annual Clio Awards (advertising Oscars, essentially) will be broadcast this coming Saturday, and Adweek wonders if the Halo 3 Believe campaign will continue its winning streak. The Clio judges aren’t revealing their choices yet, but they did talk about the process. If this stuff interests you, swing by and read. Otherwise, we’ll let you know this weekend whether Believe went all the way.(Louis Wu 14:46:05 UTC)

kr-1426 stopped by to announce that the Fan Fiction Pick of the Week feature (now in its second week) is up over at the HBO Fan Fiction forum. Anyone can read, though you’ll need to register to contribute to the discussion. If you’ve found the huge collection of work daunting, you can use these discussions as a jumping-in point!(Louis Wu 14:40:08 UTC)

TheMaker420 and D ROCK898 have been working a new podcast for a bit – it’s called HaloCast, and it covers… well, Halo. They’ve just posted Episode 3, almost 50 mb for 26 minutes, and they discuss different websites across the net, along with videos available on them and the like. (They also spend the first five minutes of the ‘cast discussing the cheating they’ve gotten away with in school – hmm.) Go listen.(Louis Wu 14:39:36 UTC)