ghaash points out that the 7-Eleven/Mountain Dew Halo 2 Slurpee Cup website is now online – with chances to win Halo 2 before you can buy it. They’re giving away lots of copies of the Limiited Edition version of Halo, plus a couple of trips and a bunch of T-shirts. Eligibility is limited to the US and Canada, and you must be of legal age in your country. Check it out!

wopkins has posted a new movie showing MC doing the Can Can. It’s hilarious. 1.7 mb in WMP9 format, 1.3 mb in QT format.

More Crisp Death pics – clarksbrother put up all the pics he took (137 of them), and Konrad posted a bunch, with comments. KP wrote up his experience (an astounding amount od driving for the cause), including a scan of the original Mister Chief Blueprint, a one-of-a-kind piece showing where Frankie started, and Dan Chosich added a teaser for the footage he collected (sounds cool!). Dizzy seems to have spent the majority of the lanfest chatting on AIM or IRC. More writeups might on the way.

Stuntmutt sent in a special Sunday strip for One One Se7en – it addresses one of the biggest points of contention on our forum right now. Warning – it’s 200K large. Speaking of Stuntmutt, it seems he’s been cheating on us; or at least, he’s producing content for other sources, and not telling us. Bad Stuntmutt! He’s got an entire blog going over at blogspot – it contains commentary, lost strips, and (most recently) some awfully cool work by Stunt and Tina Leyk. Seems they agreed to swap strips; you can see her offering to him, and his offering to her… both are great. On this lazy Sunday afternoon (I’m running on 5 hours of sleep in the last 60), this stuff is easy on the eyes. Update: Ross Mills points out that a picture of the new, leaked pic of a ‘super-secret’ action figure (search our forum if you don’t know what this is about) is displayed on Stunt’s blog. Since nobody has any clue whatsoever what this model is of, or whether, in fact, it even IS a character in Halo 2, I’d disagree STRONGLY that its presence on Stuntmutt’s page is a spoiler in itself… but if you think that it is, I would suggest that you stop visiting this site completely for the next month or so. I will not be mentioning anything related to story spoilers at all, but items like this show where your opinion and mine diverge, so the only way to be sure you’re not ‘spoiled’ is to simply stop visiting.

Well, I don’t know for sure, but when I left last night around 3AM, the festivities were winding down. We all had a blast and if you check out the forum, you’ll see that some photos are starting to show up. Special thanks to all of you that spent greenbacks to fly in. Especially CYBRFRK and Shishka from the west coast. You guys are cool! Update: Sorry, there didn’t actually seem to be a link there. Fixed, now.

Okay, it’s time to start waking up the slugabeds lying all over my house; we’ve got furniture to move, and Xboxes to wire together, and Halo multiplayer to… well, play. Crisp Death kicks off in a couple of hours, and that means no more news posts for a little bit. Enjoy your Saturday!

EvilBurger pointed out that a new Subzero Rivalries is up; definitely has a Caboose-like feel to it. He’s experimenting with a new coloring style – and I’d say it works really well. Check it out!

Tina Leyk seems to have caught the baby bug; her second new piece in a row is a Halo Babies tidbit. I must say… it’s gorgeous. Check out her Fan Art page for ‘Baby MC vs Baby Elite’ – I’ve really got to get me one of those carbine water rifles!

Marty O’Donnell talked to the Music 4 Games crew about the audio in Halo 2, from what went in to what didn’t, how the outside contributors were used, what’s still to come, and more. It’s a great read – swing on by!

Okay, I doubt the overlap between HBO visitors and NPR listeners is really big, so you’re gonna have to bear with me here. National Public Radio in the US has a program called ‘Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me’ – it’s a news quiz. If you call in, and take the quiz, and win, your prize is that NPR newscaster Carl Kasell (who has a pretty distinctive voice) will leave the message on your phone’s answering machine. (You know, the one that says “we’re not here right now, leave a message” – although you can have Carl say anything you want him to.) Why is this relevant to you, the HBO viewer? Because Tim Dadabo, the voice behind 343 Guilty Spark, has agreed to perform a similar service for the winner of the 343 Guilt O’ Lantern contest. Yep, that’s right – if you win, your answering machine could tell callers, in the inimitable voice of 343 Guilty Spark, how much of a genius you are… or how fascinating the lost call is. Or whatever you choose. An incredibly generous offer, in my opinion – so do your best!

Xbox LIve France has a preview of Halo 2, written up during the European tour last month. It’s in French (naturally), but there are plenty of pretty pictures (mostly on the last page, unless you’re a REALLY big fan of Cam Payne). Thanks to caudronix for pointing this out.

No Hables is getting in on the vidmaster action; he’s posted a movie in which he runs through 343 Guilty Spark, using zero bullets… and only ONE grenade. On Legendary. Movie is 12:15 long, 31.2 mb large, in WMP9 format. It’s got a couple of double-take moments. If he runs out of bandwidth, let us know – we’ll see what we can do to help. Download it now! (Oh, yeah, and don’t forget to read the Weekly Update; it was posted so close to HBO’s end-of-day that it only stayed on the front page for a couple of hours.)

Frankie has posted an update (kinda) on Bungie.net; the game is done, as far as Bungie’s concerned, but it’s out for Certification. However, there’s plenty of reading material; info about making clans, how busy Frankie is (in between getting his butt kicked by Mat Noguchi – or wait, was that just ‘kicked out of the game’? Maybe both), and gametypes, and stuff. Go read!

Man, it took a while… but it’s done, and it’s pretty. mnemesis has unveiled the Halo Story Timeline (to date) – including information from Microsoft, the books, and the game (though the actual GAME timeline for Halo is NOT included). If you’re curious about backstory events, this is the place to look!

Halo and Master Chief have been nominated to get a star in the San Francisco Metreon’s ‘Walk of Game‘. If you want to help, you have to register (email address needed); you can vote once per day through October 31. At the moment, Master Chief and Halo are far and away the top picks for Game/Character – if you want to help keep it that way, stop by! Thanks to Frankie, at B.net, for the heads-up.

Ah, phooey. Two days ago, synide sent along a link to this week’s Plantronics Headset giveaway at haloTV – there’s even an extra set (on top of the normal 6) up for grabs. Sorry about the delay. (I was reminded when I saw a news post about this on the HaloPlanet front page.) Go win already!

Not very long ago, in our forum, Skeletor posted a link to some new artwork by Craig Mullins. I ended up having to yank the link, because the work wasn’t actually supposed to be seen by the Halo community quite yet… but in the communications I had with Craig about that piece, a number of OTHER Halo pieces have come to light. Now, we mention Mullins work whenever we notice it, because, quite frankly, it rocks. I decided this morning, however, that there were now enough Halo-related pieces that I should probably put together a separate showcase page for Mullins Halo art here at HBO. You’ll find older pieces you may have seen, years ago… but you’ll also find 2 (and maybe 3) pieces you’ve NEVER seen before; study them, and see if you can figure out how Craig evokes such atmosphere from a few brush strokes. As more work pops up, we’ll continue to add it. (Thanks to Cybrfrk for pointing out the cinematic piece.)

Stuntmutt takes a look at the new shield/health system again in today’s One One Se7en. You gotta love helpful AIs…

Uncle Mato has kindly donated some Halo gear to the 343 Guilt O’ Lantern loot pot; we’ve upped the second prize collection to include an S-type controller, and added a third prize. More goodies for everyone!

7 new pieces for you in the Fan Fiction section today – more poetry than anything else (including some haikus – whoa, does that bring back memories!). Go see.