More tourney stuff: Paulie Danger wanted to let people know about a series of events in the Philadelphia area, starting in August – details are at the Console Wars website… and tish mentioned a 4v4 tourney in Cincinnati on June 10 – more details in that forum post.

rapture sent word that recently the Hushed Casket held a LANfest – ‘Cookout! Grenades! 2’ – to celebrate one member’s house purchase and the anniversary of the first Cookout! Grenades! LAN (with a shout-out to Midnight, who couldn’t be there because he’s in Iraq)… and of course, they had a Halo-themed cake (pic 1 | pic 2). Nice!

The One One Se7en celebrity guests continue – today’s strip comes from Warbow, of Calvin and Halo fame. There’s even some color!

After an unfortunate delay that was all my fault, the winners of the halo.bungie.org poster raffle should be receiving their one-of-a-kind prizes in the next few days! From all of us here at HBO, our deepest thanks to the talented artists who donated their work and of course the fine folks at splodeswag for making the official HBO shirt a reality. Are we done with HBO shirts? Stay tuned!

Fifteen new pieces for you in the Fan Fiction section today – go read!

Narcogen, over at Rampancy.net, reminds us that Marty O’Donnell and Mike Salvatori will be at the PLAY! premiere tomorrow in Chicago – you can get more information at the PLAY! website.

At times, my online life seems to mirror my real life. Last year’s real-life birthday didn’t get missed – because it was a big one, and because my wife made sure that I’d remember it – but in general, I forget they’re coming until they’re here. Seems like that pattern continues online… we missed bungie.org’s 7th birthday back in January, and we missed the anniversary of the day blam.bungie.org (the precursor to HBO) went live – May 22, 1999. (To pin these dates down, the indispensable Marathon’s Story Page makes life pretty easy.) Today, however, is the 7th anniversary of our forum – it went live on May 26, 1999 – the same day that Rampancy.net was born. It’s been a heck of a run… and it ain’t over yet!

If you live in Great Britain, Halo 2 is now officially ‘cheap’. Microsoft kicked off a new ‘Best of Classics’ label today, and Halo 2 is on it – for £9.99. Nice deal! (I saw this at both CVG and gamesindustry.biz.) For what it’s worth – EB Games is selling Halo 2 for $29.99 in the US – that’s 60% more than this new price. Update: Vironex pointed out that Wal-Mart is selling Halo 2 in the US for $19.82… very close to the GB price.

Some very cool new shirts available at the Bungie Store – these were first seen at E3, but you can now buy them for yourself. Frankie was first (though the ‘retard’ comment was a bit out of line – I know for a fact that the guilty party is a pretty bright individual).

Fall0ut writes to point out a FFA/4v4 tourney in New Jersey on June 3 – FFA is $10 to enter, $100 for first place, 4v4 is $30 to enter, up to $1000 first prize. More details and info at the NJHalo website.

Luke Jeffery wrote to point out Wandering Tiger Machinima, a group working on a series called ‘Reclaimer‘; they’re up to Episode 4. Swing by their site to check it out.

Heh – a new survey finds that surgeons who play video games make fewer mistakes when doing laparoscopic surgery than those who don’t – and the lead researcher lists Halo 2 among his favorite games. In case you, you know, needed some ammunition against someone telling you to quit wasting your time…

Spandexman noticed a Famitsu Readers Poll being reported at QJ.net – readers of the Japanese magazine were asked what game they were most interested in (all platforms)… and Halo 3 made the list. Not bad for a first-person shooter in Japan!

Over at Rampancy.net, there’s a fascinating piece that looks at a new book by Dean Takahashi, entitled “The Xbox 360 Uncloaked: The Real Story Behind Microsoft’s Next-Generation Video Game Console”, and how that book relates to Bungie, and to the development of Halo 2 and Halo 3. Great excerpts, great analysis. If you’ve ever been interested in the behind-the-scenes stuff that went into these games, go read. (Remember – this is Takahashi’s take on events.)