Dennis McKnight sent along a small Java countdown to Halo 2; unzip this, change to the directory it’s in, and run either ‘javaw Countdown’ (if you’re on a Windows machine) or ‘java Countdown’ if you’re not. (Obviously, you must have Java installed on your machine.) It throws up a small window, minimizable, with the number of seconds remaining until midnight, November 9.

I was cleaning out my inbox (in preparation for clearing out the art queues, once again woefully behind), and found a few images that don’t really have a place to go in our heirarchy, but are worth showing anyway. ragereset sent in a pair of photos (here and here) showing a bus he saw in downtown Sydney, Australia a couple of weeks ago. The second one is blurry because rr drives a manual transmission car, and it’s hard to photograph and drive at the same time. And linus wanted to show us the depths of his love for Halo 2 – he actually painted a Halo 2 logo on his retainer. Wow…

Jonah points out that EBGames is now selling a pair of exclusive Halo 2 T-shirts. (I’m not sure about that ‘exclusive’ part – but they’re certainly selling them.)

Future Publishing is hosting the Golden Joystick Awards, an annual competition for fan opinion about video games (we mentioned them last month). Apparently, Halo 2 is currently leading GTA San Andreas in the only category it’s been nominated for (Most Wanted Game for Xmas 2004) – but a big push towards Playstation 2 owners is about to commence, so that might change. This competition is only open to residents of the UK – but if that’s you, go and make sure that Halo 2 gets its due! Thanks to Pete Parsons and Mr Danger for the info.

Mothergoat has just released what will be his last Halo song, for many reasons. We posted news about a teaser for it not too long ago… the full version of Death of Cortana is poignant, graceful, and beautiful. 3.8 mb mp3, hosted by Mothergoat (though we’ll step in if there’s a problem). Go listen. (And Mothergoat – good luck, in everything you do. Your music rocks!)

Missed this over the weekend… but Ms Man, in his quest to finish the unfinished in Halo before Halo 2 comes out (I just made that up, I don’t know if that’s really his goal), has blasted his way all the way from the bottom of Halo (the level)… to the top. Wow. Movie link, and a forum thread to talk about it, can be found over at High Impact Halo. Thanks, Ducain.

We don’t generally announce new websites on the front page any more, because there are so many of them these days that it would swamp our news… but this one is special. This came to my attention yesterday – and I must say, the concept rocks. Check out Misterchief.com… and let Mister Chief never die!

Halo Babies has posted a large art update, including artwork, desktops, and a fan strip. Go see what’s new.

Halo Universe (sporting a spiffy new design and a faster server) has an article up about the Plantronics Halo 2 headset. It’s in German, though. If it’s in your power, go read! Thanks, Marc.

I’ve received one too many messages of the form “I heard that [spoiler] is in Halo 2, is that true?”. To preserve my own enjoyment of the game, I’m going to have to stop reading my email folder entirely for two weeks. This means that a lot of messages are going to go unanswered; wallpaper submitted through email should still get through since Louis already handles that, but mail asking general questions, especially about stuff that could be found by a little research on the site or stuff about the contents of the final game that you shouldn’t know anyway, may fall by the wayside. Blame the guy who leaked it (not “the French”, OK?).

Wow. Dunno how long this is gonna last… but Halo Impulse is offering a MASSIVE (1.3 GB) map pack, containing 264 individual Halo CE maps. Close to every map created to date, I think (minus a couple still in development). If you’ve got a really big pipe – go get it!

If you ever wondered why the Master Chief has so much trouble winning those GameFAQs polls… check out their current poll. The question is ‘Do you plan to buy Halo 2?’ – and right now, the winning answer is ‘No, I don’t have an Xbox’ (36%) followed by ‘No, I don’t want it’ (23%). Not a lot of Xbox users there… Thanks, Strato.

Payoff! The Dialogue Databank, an underused but rich resource of HBO, has been ported to a far more robust backend; you shouldn’t run into any more problems using it. (Hehe – famous last words.) Extra bonus – it’s much faster now.

Quick Note – updates will be sparse today; work is continuing behind the scenes, and on real-life (non-computer-related projects) on this grey Sunday. Apologies. If you’ve sent content that hasn’t been posted, please be patient – we’ll almost certainly get to it eventually.

Been a little while since we managed a Fan Fiction update – there are 18 new stories waiting for you in there. Go see what you can find!

Foxygrandpa, Silverspoon, and Ms. Man have made it to the top of Boarding Action. There’s a bit of extra hardware involved – some sort of box that allows control of multiple players. There’s a video – 32 mb, WMP9 format – showing the details. All this and more can be found in the forum thread at High Impact Halo. Nice!

The Major League Gaming Championships kicked off today – and coverage has begun over at the MLGPro.com website. It will continue throughout the day and tomorrow – check back! Thanks, Dolbex.

Wolfy writes to point out a new episode of Marines at Sector 7 Halo. I dunno… the problem here seems like it will resolve itself, pretty quickly…

This came in yesterday, but I managed to overlook it. The Home Front team has posted another update on the Junkyard forums – screenshots of a redone map, and a fixed release date (next Friday, actually). Go read. Thanks, Mhaddy.

IGN’s Halo 2 Countdown article today is ‘Five Ways to Prepare Yourself for Halo 2‘. I’m sort of glad none of them involve vaseline.