Steve finished up his cardboard MA5B yesterday, and took a few final pictures – check out his forum post!

A few days ago, we mentioned a trailer for a new Halzred montage, called ‘Explictry’, being hosted by Halo2Forum. Halzred submitted this file to the MPRRS, as well, for feedback; he didn’t want hosting (H2F does a fine job of that), but since the MPRRS passed it (handily), we’re offering a QuickTime version for those who need it (33.3 mb). Nice editing!

Podtacular has released Episode 2 of PodTV – this one contains a legendary walkthrough of Cairo Station. Thanks to immortalthree for the heads-up (we sort of knew anyway – we’re providing the hosting for the downloadable file – but we love it when folks keep us up-to-date on what’s going on).

Also on B.net is a report of the Unofficial Music Competition recently conducted by Seventh Column Contests, a Seventh Column chapter. There is a summary of the winners and honorable mentions – but no downloadable files. (I’ve already sent email to the coordinators, offering hosting space for winning entries and honorable mentions, but I’d like to make that offer publicly, as well; we’d love to let the community at large hear these files, so if you’re in the winners’ list, feel free to send along your file, and we’ll share it with the world!) One of the participants that DIDN’T make it into the winners list posted his entry on our forum this morning, and I thought it was quite good. If that’s one of the files that DIDN’T win, I REALLY want to hear the top tier!

B.net has a small note about Xbox Live Evolved, a new forum-based site that advertises that it’s there to help you get your clan online, and facilitate clan-based community interaction. Seems like a pretty big claim – check ’em out!

GotFrag has news about the Halo2 Open, an online tourney with a top prize of $5000. It kicks off on Thursday.

Broken Console has returned to their ongoing series, The Squadron – Episode 17, “I’m Not With Him”, is available for download from their website in WMP9 format (32.5 mb). The humans are once again outnumbered – but not outmatched. Go watch! (You can grab a QuickTime version – 26.9 mb – from us if you need it.)

Sigafoos let us know that Episode 2 of WikiRiot, the podcast devoted to subjects surrounding HaloWiki.net, is now available – 13.6 mb, 34 minutes. Topics include this week’s updates, an upcoming clan tourney, and more. Go listen!

Mintz let us know that Halo: Portable’s been updated again; Stephen Loftus’ In Amber Clad article is there, as is a readable preview of the Halo Graphic Novel, the Halo 3 Behind The Scenes vid, and the Advanced Warfighter vid, all for your mobile viewer! Check ’em out.

Rockslider doesn’t quit – our forum contains a new post from him, detailing new changes to his Bad Cyborg site. Lots of tactics and tips… go read!

A couple of days ago, we mentioned some cardboard Halo guns made by a fan; we soon received another batch of pictures from a different fan, who’s been building his own cardboard weapons. Swing by this page to see the cardboard weapons of yayap_the_grunt.

Okay, so here’s the deal. A few days ago, a really cool movie was released by Bungie – ‘Halo 3: Behind The Scenes’. It came out in lots of flavors, lots of sizes… but the highest-resolution QuickTime, a gorgeous HD 720p version weighing in at 400 mb, had a problem; the last 20 seconds of the video got corrupted every time they tried to upload the file to the servers. The word in the latest Weekly Update is that the problem still isn’t solved. Now, 400 MB is WAY too big for us to handle as a direct download – especially if we’re the only host, and the file is as popular as this one is. But this is EXACTLY the sort of thing that BitTorrent is good at. And we can certainly spare 20Mbit/sec of seed bandwidth, to help folks get started… so with Bungie’s blessing, we’re offering the HD QuickTime version of this film as a torrent. If you’ve been waiting for this version, wait no longer – grab a BitTorrent client and start sharing! (For those who’ve been waiting for this but cannot or will not use BitTorrent – I really do apologize, but a 400MB file might kill us. Really.)

Tonight’s Weekly Update focuses on the XBL playlists (there are still 20 million games of Halo 2 played each month – WOW!), plus info on what’s been going on in the office this week, and another great installment of the Waaahmbulance. Go read – at Bungie.net or in our Weekly Update Archive. Frankie, as usual (though not always) was first – though he’s stuck true to his ‘no more Firsts’ pledge after the Halo 3 trailer came out, and has titled this post ‘Free Food’ or something.

Hmm… I usually stay away from the Story-related stuff until the Story Page crew picks it up… but this seemed pretty cool to me. Check out bikeman704’s speculations on the Ark in the Halo 3 trailer, and where else you might have seen one…