Took longer than I’d hoped, but the voting for this year’s Guilt O’ Lantern pumpkin-carving contest is now online. There were a few entries we had to disqualify (pictures were too small, etc), but there are 54 pumpkins for you to peruse – pick your top 5. Please – don’t stop after page 1; there are amazing entries that were submitted near the end, as well. (I’m not saying there aren’t great pumpkins on the first page… but we’ve seen in the past that people get bored, and vote only for pumpkins on the first page or two. Look at ’em all before you decide!) You’ve got at least a week; we’ll probably shut voting down next Monday.(Louis Wu 16:36:52 UTC)

We’ve got a one-two punch for you today from ZZoMBiE13 and Stuntmutt – a joint joke (well, sort of) that starts in Another Halo Comic Strip and ends in a Sunday One One Se7en. I take no responsibility for the stomach upset.(Louis Wu 16:31:00 UTC)

Rockslider has started a section for Halo 3 Fun on his Bad Cyborg website – first article looks at some slaughter available on The Ark. Check it out!(Louis Wu 16:21:17 UTC)

Big Goalie Dan let us know that Podtacular 133 is up – strategies for beating Crow’s Nest, as well as skull locations, are included. Just over an hour, 30 mb. Go grab it! (Louis Wu 16:19:49 UTC)

Delta was the first to let us know about a spoof of Halo 3 in last night’s Mad TV. If you missed it, apparently it’ll be available on iTunes soon (thanks, bad pogo).(Louis Wu 16:18:20 UTC)

PEZ pointed out a halowiki.net page with Halo 3 survival tips – add your own!(Louis Wu 16:13:47 UTC)

LadyRziha stopped by last night to post pictures of the costumes she made for her husband and her brother. (A few years ago, she made a costume out of plastic jugs for her husband; this time, she used cardboard. Way cheaper, way easier, and they look fantastic!)(Louis Wu 16:12:31 UTC)

Capt Spanish took some GORGEOUS shots way, way, WAY outside of the Ark; they’re linked in his forum post.(Louis Wu 20:56:34 UTC)

RVideo let us know about a thread over at Halo3Forum which has pictures of other date-related goodies to be found on Valhalla. If you liked the Halloween tombstones, go see what they’ve found! Update: looks like they missed some; Grunts R Us found 2 more (Earth Day and Cinco de Mayo). Thanks, oriol.(Louis Wu 19:40:43 UTC)

TrueDarkFusion let us know that Forge Hub has expanded dramatically, and now contains a tutorial section along with new high-quality creations. Swing by and see what you can find! (Louis Wu 19:39:08 UTC)

It seems that a bunch of groups are using the recently-filled-out Infection medals to narrow down what’s still missing from the medal chest. Herr Zrbo pointed out this thread at the Bungie.net forums – they’re only missing one. And PEZ told us that halowiki.net is hunting down just a single medal – check the page for details. (It’s the same one, for what it’s worth.) Can you help?(Louis Wu 19:36:58 UTC)

GryphonOsiris found (at TechEBlog) a Halo battle rifle made of Legos – and man, it’s pretty impressive-looking!(Louis Wu 19:33:10 UTC)

1UP has revisited an article from 2005 which discussed the ways in which Halo 2 ‘was broken’. They looked at the charges leveled in that piece against Halo 2, to see whether they were addressed in Halo 3. The upshot? According to 1UP, Bungie fixed most of what was supposedly wrong in 2005 – but broke a bunch of new stuff. Interesting sidenote – when that article was first published, I was significantly less dispassionate about it than I usually am about news bits; it seems that it actually offended me. (I actually lost respect for 1UP when they published it, because I didn’t think it deserved the space it got.) Unfortunately… some of the new complaints are just as silly as the old ones. I’ll agree with them on the spawn point issues, but the rest of the second page seemed like filler material. Thanks to Narcogen, at Rampancy.net, for finding this.(Louis Wu 19:30:38 UTC)

Kornman00 has written up his tour of Bungie Studios, won in a charity auction back in March, and realized a couple of days ago. It’s a five-page long PDF, downloadable from Halo 2 Vista Forums (follow the first link), and it’s a great read, even if he WAS required to heavily censor himself. Go look!(Louis Wu 18:54:45 UTC)

Morpheus managed to record the Storm’s closing cutscene with no musical overlay; we’ll likely do this again ourselves, at some point, just to keep formats consistent, but in the meantime, you can see/hear it with just the input from the scene itself if you follow links in his forum post.(Louis Wu 18:28:10 UTC)

One of those days – sorry for the lack of news. Yesterday a couple of people stopped by our forum with pictures of Halo-related Halloween costumes – Brandon found some pics online at a Predator forum – check the second picture down for a foam master chief and a purple Cortana. And HookMeUpImLocal posted a whole passel of pics of himself in a Mister Chief costume, meeting all sorts of other celebrities. I bet Frankie’d love one of those!(Louis Wu 18:25:50 UTC)