(sexy)Josh Britt wrote to tell us that the radio station he works for is starting a half-hour radio show devoted to Halo, hosted by SexyJosh himself. The first show is tomorrow at 9:30 pm EST, and can be found at www.gameshoutradio.com. (This will be followed at 10 pm by a community chat show, and one of the questions is ‘How do YOU think Half-Life 2 will compare to Halo 2?’ Since they used to be a Half-Life-only radio station, they’re gonna need Halo defenders. Stop by.

Slashdot interviewed Neal Stephenson last week – it’s a fascinating read. (Well, it is if you like Stephenson. I do.) Kudos to Preston the Cyberdog, who noticed a tiny mention of Halo 2 in it. (Question 6 dealt with the melding of games and novels, and Stephenson’s answer involved the I Love Bees phenomenon.)

IGN’s latest article in their Countdown to Halo 2 (you gotta wonder if they’re not thinking, about now, that it might have been better to start this countdown closer to November 9…) is called ‘The 10 Things You Must Have to Play Halo 2‘. On the list is a lot of food, some scantily clad women (not sure how that’s gonna help the girl gamers), and a stereo system. Um… I’d have to say they missed a few important pieces – like Halo 2, an Xbox, and at least one controller. Oh, well.

Okay, I think some of you are going a little overboard. I got several messages yelling at me for not warning people about the spoilers in the new commercial, and I got torn a new one for posting Mothergoat’s newest piece, ‘Death of Cortana’ (even though the FIRST time we mentioned that we made it clear that he got the idea from First Strike, NOT Halo 2, and that he knows nothing about the Halo 2 storyline). If you believe there are spoilers in the new Halo 2 commercial, I’d recommend that you grab a pillow, climb under your bed, and stay there until November 9 – because otherwise you might look out the window, see a schoolbus, and realize that the fate of the universe might rest on the Master Chief RIDING a schoolbus through the sun of the Covenant Homeworld… and be spoiled. In short, people… calm down. If it’s on our front page, I will GUARANTEE that it’s not a story spoiler. Period.

Kevin Ryan writes to point out that Afterwar part 7 is up over at Black Art Studios. Pictures speak louder than words.

A number of people have pointed out that halo2.com has been updated – one of the damaged warthog mini-pics in the Humans section has been replaced with the ATV (though there is no large corresponding version – and no, this doesn’t mean that Bungie was lying when they said the ATV was no longer in the game), and the passworded areas behind the Prophets have been updated to actually CHECK passwords – meaning, presumably, that if you got the right passwords, you’d be able to access the content behind them. I’m pretty sure Leighland Okey was first with the heads-up.

Gossip found a nice article over at Aussiexbox.com.au – the Master Chief has taken over half of a sign that’s belonged wholly to Coke for 30 years. With an appropriate tagline, it looks like the Australian advertisers for this game have put a nice feather in their caps!

There’s a small update over at the Halo Story page – tie-ins between Halo and Ulysses? You bet. Go read! (The machine’s acting flakey these days, so please – if you have trouble connecting, just try again later. You don’t need to tell us there’s a problem – handling the extra flood of email just means it takes us LONGER to fix the problem. Thanks.)

Thank you to the DOZENS of people writing in with links to a small (320×240) version of the newest Halo 2 commercial – but thanks to metaphyber, we’ve got a nice hi-res version for you. 640×480, available in both QuickTime (5.4 mb) or DivX (3.8 mb). We just got word that there’s the copy uploaded to Brian Towne’s community server (mpeg1, 320×240, 5 mb). Grab whatever works for you.

A number of people pointed out that nilerogers.com now has a Listening Station, a small flash app that lets you listen to all four released soundtrack snippets in one window. If you missed any, check it out!

Bruce points out a new flash animation at Newgrounds – it’s called That Halo Parody 6. (I suppose that means that there are 5 earlier ones.) Um… well, my mother said if you have nothing nice to say, say nothing at all.

The first recordings of the Halo 2 commercial that ran earlier today are starting to appear on the net. We’re still gathering mirrors, but it’s available for now from Mythica.org. This is, for the record, a direct-feed version of the video seen in the shakeycam EB “briefing” video from a few weeks back. Look for it on TV tonight!

Mad Cow sent in pictures of the Master Chief costume he built for a costume contest – it took place last weekend, and he won first prize. (We mentioned this suit about a month ago.) You can see a few shots of his suit – here, here, and here. If you want to see it in construction, visit his suit page. He thought it would be cool to have two suit updates in the same day.

The DJ of HaloImpulse writes to say that HBO-originated visitors grabbing two large downloads have contributed to several hundred gigabytes of bandwidth eaten in a very short time… he wanted to make it clear that donations ARE accepted.

Many people wrote to point out that Bungie.net is considering shutting down their forums, as well, for the next two weeks; your vote counts. visit, vote.

A year ago, Chris Bryan began making a Master Chief wearable suit. (This was before anyone had ever heard of Nightmare Armor.) We followed his progress with pictures for several months… and then I began to get backlogged… and I stopped posting them. Chris didn’t stop sending them, though, or working on his suit – and I’ve FINALLY brought the page up-to-date. The first of the non-posted pictures came in on March 27, and they’ve come steadily ever since. Go check out the progress of this labor of love!

It’s official – multiscreen Coop is not part of Halo 2. IGN has confirmed this fact with Microsoft (and I’ve confirmed it with Bungie, as well). You can play Coop on a single screen – as you can in Halo – but one player per screen, whether via system link or XBL, is out. Sorry, folks!

A number of reports have come in about Halo 2 commercials showing up on normal US channels (a wide range of them). We don’t have any for download yet – but if anyone manages to save a good copy, let us know – we’re happy to host it.

Deimos Fawkes, of Subnova, has put together a techno tribute to I Love Bees – though non ILB-followers who enjoy techno should like it, too. MPEG-4 format, 4:42 long, 4.3 mb. It’s called ‘Parabolic Lemonade Failure‘.

akba points out that after a long quiet spell, Adventures in Disaster is back – with a new strip by Boxer, celebrating a lanfest that happened here about 2 weeks ago. In fact, they’re SO back that they’ve invaded One One Se7en… or something.