Looks like jman571 was first with the news that Frankie had posted a snippet about those new, limited edition (500 total) mylar prints mentioned in last week’s update. Swing by the Bungie Store, and for $30 (plus shipping), you can snag one of these signed-by-the-artist masterpieces!

Stuntmutt plays with the title of the upcoming Halo novel in today’s One One Se7en. Hmm… ‘plays with’ might not be a fair assessment. ‘Attacks with a hand-axe’ might be closer… Update: if you’re a REAL masochist, there are several followups in this thread. I blame trigger119 for starting it.

Over the years, number of people have put in serious hours converting Warhammer 40K characters to look like Halo characters. JoeIce stopped by several months ago with some cool pics – well, he came back this weekend with a whole batch of new ones. some of the shots are a bit fuzzy – but go through ’em all, there are some great ones in there! And check out his website, as well; pretty nice home for the actual gaming rules and tons of info.

Narcogen spent his whole weekend, it seems, writing up a comparison of Halo and Half-Life 2 (Xbox versions only). It’s a great read. It’s also really long. Pull up a mug of your favorite beverage and settle in!

Podtacular Episode 55 has been posted – it’s a Customs and Call-ins show. We heard about this from Mintz, who was a guest-host this week (and did their pod art, to boot). Go listen!

There’s an article at TMCnet.com about a Halo tournament that took place in Spokane, WA a couple of days ago. It’s interesting because it was clearly written for non-gamers; it’s nice to see this sort of stuff get coverage in more mainstream press. (It says they got this from the Spokesman-Review, but I couldn’t find it online on their site.)

Yesterday, Jillybean updated the Halo Story page with a choice collection of emails – evolutionary theory, sex drive, mad AIs, and… um, mad AIs. Apologies for not notifying you sooner; yesterday was pretty far from fun here.

Oh, before I go… Rockslider has added another piece to his second-level fun suggestions at Bad Cyborg; Mad Banshees. Ever feel like the enemy AI is letting their emotions override their logic?

It must be that time of year – there are posts all over the place from folks looking back on Halo 2, and trying to decide where the community stands. On the HaloGrid forum, trigger119 looks at what keeps him coming back to a game he thought he was done with. And on our own forum, Ducain tries to pin down why he had so much more fun in Halo Campaign than he does in Halo 2 Campaign. They’re both good reads – lots of meat to chew. Bring your fork. Me? I’m headed out to the boondocks for the day.

Mintz sent a note about what’s new over at Halo: Portable – a pair of psp-compatible vids (they were pretty popular in their original formats, so good choices), and the Weekly Update; go grab new content for your PSP!

In keeping with their Heretics & Heroes episode/flashback alternation, Slacker Entertainment has released Flashback 3: Fun with Numbers. Wellington runs up against a challenge he simply can’t overcome… counting to five. Yeah.

Another movie made it through the MPRRS this morning – this one’s from KingChuck and Team Conquest, and it tells the story of a man getting revenge for the death of a friend. The entire story (all 12 minutes of it) is told with music and visuals only; there is no dialogue. Powerfully done, though some of the reviewers felt it started slowly. Check it out – 72 mb, in either WMP9 or QuickTime formats.

Heh – Hminn noticed a writeup on some funky computer games in which humans are pitted against protozoa… and the writer starts out by suggesting that he hopes he could beat the protozoa in a Halo match. I hope so, too.

QuickTactical submitted another segment of Soldiers of War to the MPRRS, and got approved – you can grab Episode Five in either WMP9 format (46.5 mb) or QuickTime format (44.9 mb). The Russian attackers are ambushed by a small contingent of Americans.

There’s an article about the perks afforded to pro gamers in the upcoming season over at MLGPro.com – travel stipends, free registrations, and other perks are available to the top players. Go read about the 2006 season! Thanks, 3Suns (who suggested a summary of ‘The Rich Get Richer’ for this piece – ouch!).

Short (but pretty sweet) update this week, over at Bungie.net – soon-to-be-updated playlists, detailed info about the Soundtrack Volume 2, some KILLER artwork, and some nice case mods. And a Mister Chief that makes me wonder what Frankie does on his off hours. Go read – either at Bungie.net, or right here, in the Weekly Update Archive. I haven’t even had time to visit the forum, but I’d BET there’s a ‘First!’ from Frankie there… of course there is. (Silly me for even talking about it.)

Captain Spark continues his dialogue snippet collection – 22 more tidbits either on his site, or browsable, in our Dialogue Databank.

Many of us miss the weekly updates of the Halo Babies comic; Stuntmutt’s view is that maybe if he taints your memory with bad puns, you’ll miss them less. Go read today’s One One Se7en.