MLG kicks off the 2006 season with a huge, detailed announcement full of tour and event details, rules, and a mess of other stuff. Check it out, and thanks to Derek for the heads-up on the forum.

DJ Voltage Spike of MMORadio.com drops by the forum to announce that Major Nelson will be their live guest tonight on the Gametime Radio Show. The show starts at 6 pm PST, so listen in to hear what the Major has to say about… Xbox Live stuff. They’ll also have a toll-free number and a Skype account, so you can call in your questions.

For the last several weeks, the HBO Admin team has been playing online building our skills and having a considerable amount of fun. Last Wednesday, we were challenged by the Gunslingers of Tied the Leader. Xerxdeej did a far better job explaining than we could have; with video to boot. Update: This is a bit of narration to why we got together, and how you can challenge them. Be warned, these are not your typical gamers with teen angst, they are mature gamers with respect for their counterparts.

The World Cyber Games released the list of titles they will use in official events for the upcoming season. Notably absent from the list is Halo 2, which the WCG had featured up until this year. Thanks to 3Suns for the note.

And THAT ends my posting spree. Why the rush? Well, because in less than 4 hours, I get in a car and drive to the airport, and fly to a place that’s far, far away. (Where we’re going… there are no roads. Wait, that’s wrong.) For the next 8 days, you’re in the capable hands of the REST of the HBO staff – I MAY pop in now and then, IF I can find a net connection, and IF I get bored of drinking mai-tais on the beach… but likely, not too much. What does this mean for news submitters? Send your news to halo@bungie.org – or be prepared to wait a week for it to be posted. (Heh. I bet I get a news item sent to lwu@bungie.org in the next 15 minutes.) Enjoy yourselves, behave, and don’t rattle the Count’s cage. I’ll send a postcard!

Fan Fiction update comes early this week (see above for why) – 10 pieces for you tonight. Go read. Next update will be on Friday, the 24th.

I lied. There are some tasty morsels at Rampancy.net – you should read them before I’m through tonight. Uwe Boll (filmmaker extraordinaire, you betcha) has predicted that the Halo movie will be a failure (and you should read this, too, for a laugh)… and Narcogen has taken it upon himself to try and explain why Boll continues to make movies. (If you really want to be cynical, there’s always Stuart Woods’ theory…) What does all of this add up to? For me – it’s that SOMEONE was smart enough to keep that man FAR away from the Halo script. UPDATE: Son Goharotto points out an article at 1UP where Boll calls it quits for videogame movies.

Last quickie: Frankie posted a short news item on Bungie.net pointing out a few Halo websites that didn’t get mentioned in yesterday’s Valentine update. (I’m sure he’s getting all sorts of hatemail from sites that didn’t make EITHER list… but hey, sometimes you just gotta roll with it.)

There’s a new module posted at This Spartan Life – it’s the end of Episode 2, and it focuses on the Solid Gold Elite Dancers. And maybe suggests why you shouldn’t get on their bad side. QuickTime is up now, WMP9 coming soon.

Continuing: prometheus writes that the Halouvre has been totally overhauled, and augmented with lots of new artwork; go check it out! (The HUDless image galleries of Xbox7887 and Major.Dump contain some pretty astounding new pics, for example.)

Next, DarkJohn117 points out that the second segment of the German-language Elite Analysis has been posted – swing by and read (or translate) it.

A few rapid posts: we’ll start with a piece on MLGPro.com that takes a look back at the 2005 season – nice memories! Thanks, 3Suns.

DKN2 found a new version of Hang ’em High, built for Counter-Strike (the original, not Source). Check it out!

Wonga. Over at Tied The Leader, XerxdeeJ has a story up about the Halolympics, a multi-game Halo tournament being conducted online right now. (CobaltNova has even set up a website for it all – 19 days of gaming, and you can join in!) Thanks to 3Suns for letting us know this morning – too bad it’s been such a busy day! Update: Eep – turns out the invitation to participate is for clanmembers only; you’re welcome to join their clan, I suppose, but you can’t sign up for the games unless you’re a Gunslinger. Thanks to CobaltNova for the clarification.

It’s Wednesday, so it must be bad pun day… yep, check One One Se7en.

Wow. For a few years, I’ve been openly scornful of the attitudes of Jack Thompson, the lawyer who’s made his career suing videogame companies for wrongful death; I’ve felt that his arguments are specious at best, and maliciously deceptive most of the time. Well, the guy just got a helping hand from a surprising source – the Washington Post. (Don’t forget that bugmenot.com will help you read that, if you don’t have an account.) It’s an article in which both soldiers, and those who train them, state plainly that the videogames they play help them both in battlefield tactics, and in breaking down the barriers to shooting another person. Yeah, there are a couple of paragraphs in the story devoted to soldiers who were NOT made insensitive to death by video games – but it feels like a tacked-on afterthought in an attempt at ‘balanced coverage’ to me. Any way you cut it – you can be sure this article will turn up in court, in Jack’s briefcase. Lots of people pointed this out to us – looks like Paul Marsh was first. And while Snowy_Duck was 10 hours behind Paul, he did start the first forum thread on the topic. Go discuss. Update: Same article is available without a login at msnbc.com – thanks, Dry Ice.

Robomonkey found a pretty cool-looking paintball jersey – not available for purchase yet, but maybe soon – which will put the Mjolnir armor on your body, at least in cloth form, while you try to paint your opponents. Check it out!

The whole ‘Crazy Frog’ fad was way bigger in Europe last year than it was in the US – but most people have seen (or at least heard) it before; lithuanian x pointed out a video on Google that sets it up in Halo. Decent cinematography, nice use of mods. I wish the download link worked better, because watching it in a Flash window is less than ideal… but sometimes, you take what you can get.