Bungie, faced with a decimation of their writing team this week, punted. They let Stosh and Rocketmoose bring you most of the Weekly Update, and while the results are amusing and entertaining, they might leave you wishing you knew more about what was going on inside Bungie’s studios this week… Well, it’s still pretty funny that someone’s paid $250 to change their gamertag so far. You can, as always, read this in our Weekly Update Archive, if you so choose.(Louis Wu 02:29:27 UTC)

SPARTAN 294 let us know that Arby n the Chief Episode 10 has been posted at Machinima.com. Arbiter and the brute play a little GTA4, Cortana goes on a date, and the Chief gets jealous.(Louis Wu 19:22:17 UTC)

Dennis Powers pointed out that Shipwrecked Episode 16 is now up. That thing looks… mean.(Louis Wu 19:21:46 UTC)

Darkspire Films, too, has a new offering today – ‘Farewell Travis‘ looks at what happened to Travis after the last time we saw him. Here’s hoping you never meet the Guardians… thanks, Dan the Stick.(Louis Wu 17:52:05 UTC)

Harabek let us know that there’s a new short from The Guard, set in the PreGame Lobby world, but not part of the regular series. It’s fun!(Louis Wu 17:08:33 UTC)

Smooth Few Films hasn’t created a lot of Halo machinima – but everything they’ve put out has been of outstanding quality (check our news for details), and they’re back with a new piece that rocks. The GunStop Way takes aim at sleazy videogame sales tactics, using sharp humor, polished effects, and good acting. Don’t miss this one!(Louis Wu 16:51:49 UTC)

It’s Friday, so it’s time for Caption Fun over at Hawty McBloggy’s house. There are results from the last session (a month ago, actually), as well as a new shot just SCREAMING for fun captions. Go try your hand!(Louis Wu 14:19:21 UTC)

Four new pieces in the Fan Fiction section this week – get to reading!(Louis Wu 14:16:17 UTC)

TTL Demag0gue announced that Reclaimer Episode #43 is now up – some history, some teasers, all wrapped in very nice effects. (Louis Wu 14:14:55 UTC)

CGSociety has a short profile on Dana Boadway, a freelance animator who did some cinematics work on Halo 3. I guess I’d always thought the in-game cinematics were scripted, in-engine…apparently not (or not entirely). Interesting stuff!(Louis Wu 14:12:25 UTC)

Over at GlitchBlog.com, you’ll find an interview with High Impact Halo’s Grand Poobah, Ducain. He talks about how he got into the whole ‘running a trick site’ thing, and what warms his cockles. Go read!(Louis Wu 14:07:28 UTC)

Wow, weird. Looks like there were two totally separate advertising award ceremonies this week – and Halo 3 cleaned up at both. Last night, the Art Directors Club held their 87th Annual Awards Gala, and Halo 3 picked up 5 Gold Cubes (for ‘Broadcast/Product Service Promotion/Art Direction’, ‘Broadcast/Online Commercial Webisode’, ‘Broadcast/Online Commercial Webisode’, ‘Integrated Advertising’, and ‘Broadcast/Craft/Art Direction’), one Silver Cube (for ‘Broadcast/Craft/Direction’), and two Distinctive Merits (for ‘Broadcast/Music/Sound Design’ and ‘Interactive/Microsite’). Their full press release contains all the details. On Wednesday, the Advertising Club of New York held their 34th annual Andy Awards – and the Believe campaign picked up the 2008 ‘Grandy’ (best in show). Nice!(Louis Wu 14:04:13 UTC)

Yesterday, Bungie.net put up a tribute to Marty O’Donnell, who’s celebrating his <insert really big number here> birthday – there are some fun photoshopped pics in honor of the event. (I have to say, that Herb Alpert album cover is gonna give me nightmares.)(Louis Wu 13:54:55 UTC)

Rokit let us know that there’s an art contest up and running over on the Bungie.net forums – we mentioned this monthly contest back in early March, and it seems like it’s been going strong since. Bungie Store gift certificates as prizes. Go look!(Louis Wu 13:49:29 UTC)