Geez – you go a weekend without posting any Fan Fiction updates, you suddenly have 23 pieces to deal with. Lots of poetry this time around.

On Saturday afternoon, Recoil brought a new product to our attention – the SmartJoy FRAG, an adaptor that allows you to connect PS/2 mice and keyboards to your Xbox. (We were sort of busy Saturday, and didn’t get to this right away.) Folks on many forums are up in arms about this, talking about how it will totally destroy Xbox Live – because a controller will never be able to keep up with a keyboard/mouse combo when it comes to accuracy. There are a few things to remember: any developer can remove the advantage of a mouse by enforcing a maximum turning speed (something that won’t really affect gameplay with a controller at all), and most people do not have their Xbox set up in a place where it would actually be convenient to play with a keyboard and mouse combination (let’s not even DISCUSS 4 keyboards/4 mice). However, it’s something to think about. According to César Berardini at TeamXbox, Microsoft has not yet responded to questions about this product. For more reading, and a movie of the product in action playing Halo, check out the Lik-Sang page or TeamXbox’s coverage. Be aware – this product is not yet available for purchase.

Ross Mills found a listing on Amazon.com for a Halo 2 Wall Calendar for 2005… except that it’s not available. Huh? (Details list a publication date of July 1, 2004. Bravardo (the publisher) doesn’t seem to have a website.) Curious… Update: Mike Scott says the listed ISBN number is invalid – did this EVER exist? Update 2: Xenos found a page which states that this calendar was cancelled. Oh, well.

Boxer reminded me a couple of hours ago that today’s Adventures in Disaster has been posted. Gotta watch them coordinates…

Narcogen, over at Rampancy.net, points out a tutorial showing how to use HexEdit, HMT, and some plugins to increase the speed of your Warthog. Since it’s posted on the MacDev site, I’d assume this works on Mac Halo. (You’ll need to register on MacDev to be able to read this.)

Major Nelson, Director of Programming for Xbox Live, has posted a picture on his blog of a metallic, embossed Halo 2 poster – looks pretty wild! Thanks to Anim8rJB for the heads-up. (Major Nelson also has pics of the final packaging of the Plantronics headset.)

Major League Gaming has launched MLG-TV, a free version of their for-pay Video on Demand. There are several vids up now, including shakeycam video from the San Fran tourney, and the LA Paintball Aftermath. Quality is quite good, especially considering what you’re paying for it (NOTHING). check it out! Thanks, Dolbex.

Some of the zanzibar-based movies showed a new (for Halo 2) gametype called Assault – not to be confused with the Assault variant of CTF. A description of the gametype can be found in the Halo.fr writeup that went online a couple of weeks ago. A potential conversation between teammates DURING this gametype can be found in today’s One One Se7en.

Boatloads of new fan-created artwork showed up this weekend at Halo Babies. We already mentioned the Tina Leyk piece – but there’s much, much more. Go see.

Piggyback Interactive, a highly-respected UK-based strategy guide publisher, held a contest for game store managers recently, asking for the best reply to “Why should I buy the Halo 2 guide with the game?” The winners were announced today – they’re all fine reasons to buy a strategy guide. (Me, personally, I’m holding off until I’ve finished the game before I get one.) The weird part, however, is when you visit Amazon.co.uk. Both the Piggyback guide and the Prima guide (which will be marketed in the US) are listed for pre-sale… but the picture shown on the Prima page is exactly the same picture shown on the Piggyback contest page. I guess we just wait and see. Thanks, eddie m.

Nesnora, over at the (newly remodeled and super-cool) Red vs Blue site, has posted another of her realistic renderings of Halo locales; this one is called ‘Shiela was Here’, and is an amazing view of Sidewinder. Prints should be available sometime in November. (You will not be able to follow that link until you sign up at Red vs Blue; it’s free, and there are so many cool features that there’s no reason NOT to sign up.) While I’m discussing great offsite wallpapers, serpx found a cool Halloween-related wallpaper over at DeviantArt. Nice work! Update: Nesnora has kindly made ‘Shiela was Here’ accessible on her own site, as well – no signup required.

MiD33 has posted a beta of his ‘Pimp up Halo‘ game over at Newgrounds; at this point, the most fleshed-out module is the warthog, thanks to the artwork of Ian McConville (used with permission), but there’s also some basic changes you can make to a scorpion tank and a Marine. Flash-based, it lets you change colors, guns, added features… fun to mess around with for a couple of minutes. Take a look!

daedalus was the first to let us know about the Wired Magazine article going online – text AND pictures. We’ll still be providing press scans for the dead tree version once the November issue is on newsstand shelves… but you can read it now over at Wired.com. Once again – there is absolutely nothing in this article that we here at HBO would consider ‘spoilers’ for the Halo 2 Story; if you read this piece and disagree, please don’t send us angry mail, simply stop visiting our site. Thanks!

Verdafolio pointed out that Demented Puppy is hosting an older multiplay vid that Clan Alphabase made, called Instability. 11.2 mb, WMP9 format. (Registration required for download.)

Today’s Ctrl+Alt+Del is Halo-related… and shows why it’s important to have roommates you can trust. Thanks, russellfamily.

Big-O found a pretty funny error on the CompUSA Halo 2 page; somehow the date and the price got melded, so Halo 2 costs $1,109.04. Ouch! (If it gets fixed, look farther down in the thread; Brian Towne snagged a screenshot for posterity. It’s still that way now, though, 2 days later…)

ËœfmËœ and °MDS are organizing a Halo 1v1 Sniper Tournament, played on Halo PC and Halo CE. If you want to participate, you have to register on the °MDS forum. Be aware that this is a German clan. You’ll find more information in this section of their forum.

On Saturday night, Wolfy sent word that the Rockets on Prisoner nominees (culled from user voting) have been posted – look them over, pick your favorites, and go vote! There’s a small thread on our forum with comments, if you’d like to add your own.

Ryan ‘Mhaddy’ Matthews of the Junkyard points out that part VI of the “As Real As a ‘Survivor’ Elimination” series is up. A Marine Corps pilot looks at the military realism of the events in 343 Guilty Spark, and talks about what he would have done had these events actually happened to him (as opposed to how he played through the game.) As always, worth the read!

Tycho/Howard found a pretty funny Flash animation over at Newgrounds; someone else who’s angling to win a Plantronics Halo 2 Headset from HaloTV. A for effort, A for humor… I’d give it to him.