Hehe – G-NOx points out a Dutch Halo 2 contest – beat the Cherry Coke monsters, win an Xbox Halo 2 pack (crystal Xbox, Halo2). You have to be Dutch to win – but anyone can play; it’s just Space Invaders. I hit 55,000 before I got too bored. 🙂 Read the post on how to find the game.

DKo5 points out a post on the Shacknews forum made by one of the people working on the redesign of halo2.com. There’s a Wallpaper ‘gift’ in the post… nice. Update: ChibiJosh posted the wallpaper directly to OUR forum, too.

Hehe – Eric Trautmann described being fully paid for his work on The Art of Halo, due out in early November, in his blog. (If you’re near Olympia, Washington, on November 13, you can get it signed, even.) There’s also a nice ramble about how he feels about this whole process, and the Halo fan community as a whole. Eric wondered how long it would take a fansite to notice this update; Rampancy.net had it posted about 3 hours after it went up. We, unfortunately, are lagging a bit; we’re 12 hours behind them. I’m slipping…

Stuntmutt takes a look at societal mores once again in today’s One One Se7en. (This was inspired by the Wired article posted recently… and some other stuff.)

nexus points out a 2v2 Halo Tourney in Dover, New Jersey on October 23 – $35 entry fee (discount with a Gamestop coupon), $800 payout. More details can be found in his forum post, or their website.

IGN continues their downward slide (and I do mean DOWNWARD) into Halo 2 with a new article entitled ‘On The Pot‘ – describing how the author gets his best info about Halo 2, and where. Yes, it’s what you think it is. This series better ramp up soon, or I’m gonna have to stop posting links…

There’s a bunch of Halo Babies fan-generated 3D artwork over at… well, Halo Babies. Go look!

No, they don’t mean it’s gonna be terrible – they mean its a fusion of Worst, a popular Japanese manga that’s coming to America, and Halo 2, a popular video game that’s coming… well, everywhere. A Halo 2 tourney in mid-November, with Worst and Halo-related goodies for prizes. Check out all the details on the Digital Manga page.

Tina Leyk is back, with two new Fur-Lo comics; they’re both great looks at multiplayer… erm, fun. Or something. (I’ve been there, on BOTH of these…)

Okay, enough people have been whinin- er, clamoring for the return of the HBO-XBL Gamertag list that I put it back up tonight. What it DOESN’T have: I’ve yanked the ability to list what games you play. (This is why it disappeared in the first place; new games were being added to XBL so quickly that I couldn’t keep up, and people complained that the games they were playing weren’t yet on the list. It was easier just to yank it.) Think of it now as a way to find HBO regulars on XBL to play Halo 2 against.

Wow. Hawaiian Pig has ALREADY whipped up a MegaBattle set piece from Red vs Blue episode 39… wow. (There’s also a really nice little wallpaper in there.)

A couple of days ago, we mentioned a Spike TV casting call; it was happening in Santa Monica, CA, on Tuesday. It’s been rescheduled; the actual event will be tomorrow, Wednesday, October 13, at 10:30 am. The full casting notice can be seen here.

It’s almost, but not quite, the end of Tuesday – this episode of Calvin and Halo makes it in under the wire. (No guarantees on how long it’ll be readable; our backup servers are both choking.) It’s a big ‘un… but then, the job Calvin is trying to do is a big ‘un.

Team Radeon has put out a guide to Tweaking Halo PC – lots of information on making HPC run nicely on your computer. Check it out!

Soulblighta found another version of the Breaking Benjamin track off the Official Halo 2 soundtrack; this one’s at the MSN Music site. He found the link in an Xbox.com newsflash. If you’d rather listen to the song as a .wma stream than a Flash animation, this is your ticket.

A whole passel of movies for you this morning: a couple of ‘Where are we now?’ vids and a promo for the Homefront mod.

• Hikaru-119’s ‘With Us‘ looks at where the Human race stands…
• kwdono04’s ‘The Final Countdown‘ recaps our views of Halo 2 from announcement day through the present…
• The Homefront team has released their Version 2 Video, a cinematic look at what’s available in this Battlefield: Vietnam mod (and it looks pretty awesome).

Go grab the ones that interest you!

Bali, continuing to cull the best Halo 2 content from Xbox.com, points out a Contest for Canadians; as long as you’re of legal age, you’re eligible to Play Halo 2 before it hits the stores. Fill out the form (really, just click the ‘sign me up’ link) and boom, you’ve got a chance to be flown to Toronto on October 25th to play Halo 2 multiplayer with the band The Music – two weeks before everyone else. Not bad!

Red vs Blue Episode 39, kicking off Season 3, is now available for download. It’s 8:45 long, and currently only available in Lo-Res formats (they haven’t started the sponsorship stuff yet). QuickTime is 49 mb, DivX is 48 mb, WMP9 is 36 mb – and whatever format you grab, the whole thing is pretty durn funny. Go watch!