Rocksiider continues his investigations into fun battles you can set up on Silent Cartographer – check out this forum post for more details.

Michael Katcher looked at the MLG model and extrapolated to sports in general; could we see internet-based subscription content supplanting one-size-fits-all TV options in the future? (My guess – not if cable companies have anything to say about it; video-on-demand might make this whole concept moot in the next couple of years.) Comments can go into his blog, or into the forum thread he started to let us know about this.

During my travels through the Red vs Blue community, I ran across HyperSoldier, who’s got quite a bit of Halo-related artwork up at DeviantART (as well as a few extra pieces in his RvB images collection). Give it a look!

Stephen Loftus shows no sign of slowing down in his quest to fully delineate the known vehicles and structures in the Halo universe; his latest subject is the Phantom Troop Carrier. Armaments, interior space, carrying capabilites – he (with the help of Dojorkan, who supplied some of the pictures) lays it all out for you; go read up!

There were a bunch of questions that came in, asking for clarification about the rules for the 7 on the 7th contest – can you photoshop your images, can you use extra (non-Halo) action figures, how do you specify your caption and theme… we’ve added answers to these questions in the Rules section of the contest page.

MikeMan27 submitted to the MPRRS a new movie he’d edited – ItWasLuck’s 5th montage. This film is up for grabs at Halo2Forums.com in WMP9 format, and weighs in at 100 mb (it’s almost 9 minutes long), but since it passed the MPRRS (handily, I should add), we’re making a QuickTime version available, as well, for those who need it. A lot of beautifully-strung-together kills, set nicely to music with some really big names in the sights. The biggest complaint from the MPRRS crew was that it was a bit long – but past that, this one ROCKS. Give it a look.

Swing by and light a birthday candle for High Impact Halo, which turned two a few days ago. Awesomeness!

The new Weekly Update has been posted – a nice little Q&A. You can read it on Bungie.net, in our Weekly Update Archive, or at Halo: Portable for your PSP. Who was first? Who do you think?

If you’ve got questions for Bungie, swing by Bungie.net and post ’em in this thread – Frankie will answer (some of) them in tonight’s Weekly Update. Gogogo!

Joseph Staten, a graduate of Northwestern University, will be back at his alma mater on April 22 to talk about Halo, and the writing of its story. It’s part of a full day of seminars from NWU alumni – the full day is $65 (with lunch), a half day is $45, and a single seminar is $20. (Unless you’re a Northwestern student, in which case it’s $5.) Registration deadline is April 14, a week from today – if you’re in the Evanston, IL area, and you’d like to hear Joe talk about how Halo was made, sign up! Thanks to Mike Miller for the heads-up.

Mintz writes to point out the new content at Halo: Portable, which now supports the iPod and PocketPC in addition to the original PSP content – you can find Wedow and Vinny Jones’ montage, in multiple portable formats, Bungie’s interview with Burnie Burns, and a truly annoying welcome to Funkmon, who’s joined the staff there. Go look. (Well, not at that last one. Especially if you’re prone to epileptic seizures.)

Peptuck found an interesting clip of a remix of ‘Under Cover of Night’ – read his forum post for more details. The full version can be purchased as part of a remix album.

Halomaps.org has upgraded the functionality of their Halo CE Server list – you can see full map lists (to make sure you have them before joining), gametypes, uptime, and so on. Great stuff! If you’re playing HaloCE online, this is invaluable.

It’s April 7th… which means it’s time for… that’s right, another 7 on the 7th contest! (Yeah, as though we’ve been doing one of these every 7th.) Anyway, this one is fun; grab some Halo action figures, pose ’em up nice (keep it clean, we’re going to toss entries that are obscene), write a funny caption, and send it along; if you’re one of the top 7 entries, you’ll win a fresh copy of the Halo 2 Original Soundtrack Volume 2, due in stores on April 24! What’s more – these will be autographed by Marty O’Donnell! There’s one twist; the theme of your picture needs to fit a track title from one of the three Halo soundtrack volumes. (If you need a list of titles, you’ll find a link on the contest page.) Go read for a complete list of rules and regulations… and get to composing those figures!

Captain Spark dropped off another 19 dialogue snippets – you can grab ’em in bulk from his site, or browse ’em in our Dialogue Databank. There’s one that’s unintelligble to me – and Spark didn’t even try it, so he clearly couldn’t hear it either. (If you can tell what the brute is saying, let us know.) And yes – there are still a TON of snippets from other submitters in the queue; once again, Spark’s stuff jumps to the front of the queue solely because processing takes me a couple of minutes, instead of a couple of hours. I’m really sorry. Update: Marty clarified the full quote for us – it looks like the sample we’ve got is missing the first couple of words. Pretty funny quote, though!

MPRRS has reached it’s first 365 days of service. We have a living, viable solution that reduces work for Louis Wu and keeps the best of the best rolling for the community. As a side benefit we have also helped numerous movie makers increase their skills. Want to see some statistics, visit the forum posting.

What’s worse than random speculation about Halo 3? Random puns about it… go read One One Se7en.

A megaman Master Chief? It’s Photoshop Phriday at Something Awful – thanks, Michael M.

Sixteen new stories in today’s Fan Fiction update… what are you waiting for?

Narcogen adds still MORE to his ‘rampant speculation’ about what’s next for the Halo series over at Rampancy.net – Part III looks at potential alliances and future actions. Go read!