We didn’t do anything for you for Valentine’s Day – but Bungie did. Frankie put together a huge list of Halo lovin’… go read, and find a site or three you’ve never seen (but should have!). He even gives props to Stuntmutt (though I’m surprised the list of qualifiers on the compliment didn’t come with “pages with a double ‘t’ in them”…).

BitMaP noticed a new flash vid by Wasamonster over at Newgrounds – It’s Rated Mature: Halo. Spelling is atrocious, but there are some funny bits. Check it out!

Stuntmutt sends you his best wishes in a special holiday One One Se7en.

Stephen Loftus posted a note on our forum about a new styrene model he’s working on – this one is In Amber Clad, and it’ll be to the same scale as his Pillar of Autumn model. We’ve put up a local copy in his Collected Works section – check it out!

Over at MLGPro.com, the Player of the Week is StrongSide (nice read), and foulgasm is doing some interesting stats stuff on his blog (which got him marked as blog of the week). Thanks, 3Suns.

Awesome new artwork from Bryn Casey – Support and Hunter. When was the last time you saw a Hunter in such gentle color tones? (He STILL looks mean.) Check ’em out!

You may remember Heretics & Heroes, a series that posted a trailer and a character intro recently; well, they’ve got Episode 1, “Operation: Frozen Spleen”, online now. Filmed in the original Halo engine (this episode takes place before the issuance of Mark VI armor), Ep 1 will introduce you to Lt. Feldman, and the rather unpleasant job he’s been tasked with. Production values are a cut above, across the board. Go grab it, in QuickTime, DivX, or WMP formats, high or low res!

Yesterday, SNOWBLIND1717 submitted ‘It Doesn’t Remind Me’, a Halo music video set to Audioslave’s song of the same name, to the MPRRS; they liked it. Syncing’s not perfect – but it’s quite good, and his choices for action are inspired. (The onscreen activity matches the song really well.) Go watch! WMP9 version is 22.3 mb, QuickTime version is 23.7 mb. And go visit his website, as well.

Today’s One One Se7en looks at the news of more Halo novels… through a prism. Shattered when the drunk carrying it dropped it. And all the pieces scattered when he fell on them.

Wow. A note came in last week, I spaced on posting it, the submitter was kind enough to send it again (politely), I spaced AGAIN. Someone needs to hire a real news guy for this place… the one we’ve got ain’t cutting it. ANYWAY, the note was from Andrew Matlock, who is a member of the Marty Army, as well as someone interested in facilitating interaction among musicians inspired by Halo. He’s set up a website which offers to help you share your Halo-related music, in addition to keeping track of composer profiles and music product reviews. All genres and styles are welcomed – the only common thread must be inspiration by Marty. Check out the upload page… submit your work… and when there’s some content to show you, we’ll be sure to mention it! (Hopefully in a more timely manner than this newspost.)

Saturday morning, Tempus Fugit pointed out a news item at Ain’t It Cool News, in which Mike Mignola (the artist behind the Hellboy comics) suggested that Guillermo Del Toro was never really considering the Halo movie project, and that Hellboy 2 was next on his plate after all. This is not confirmation that Del Toro has taken himself out of the running for the position of Director – in fact, if you wanna get technical, he’s never actually been confirmed (by Microsoft, Bungie, Universal, or Peter Jackson – the only entities/groups officially involved at this point) as being IN the running… but Mike M. seems like someone who might know some stuff. Thanks also to 3Suns, who reminded me that I hadn’t posted this during the weekend.

The series of auctions we mentioned for the huge Halo 2 sign that hung in Kings Cross in Sydney, Australia for several months last year kicked off last night – there’s an article about it on Bungie.net’s front page (and, unsurprisingly, a ‘First’ note by Frankie on our forum). The first piece is a chunk of the MC’s arm and leg. I can’t tell how big it is from the pic – but the entire sign was broken up into only 8 pieces… so it’s probably pretty darned huge.

Wow. We fixed the MPRRS upload problem, and in short order 6 movies entered the system. The first one in was the first one out – successfully. jamie98s (previously known primarily for his ‘Oh So Beautiful’ series) created ‘Chaos on the Creek’, a story of two factions that decide they can’t live together. Cinematography is awesome – watch this one for the camerawork alone, even if you don’t like the story. (Which is pretty good in its own right.) Grab it in WMP9 format (29.1 mb) or QuickTime format (28.3 mb). Awesomeness.

A few days ago, the MPRRS began to have some trouble; folks were having difficulty uploading files. Turns out… our temporary upload directory was full of failed uploads; we’d run out of space. (My bad, for not clearing it on a regular basis. STANDARD files were cleared – but corrupted ones weren’t.) The easiest solution was to move the temp directory to a partition with more space (100 times more space, actually) – but I was careless, and missed several places in the upload scripts where this directory was referenced. Because of this, all uploads SINCE the fix (which happened Friday) have vanished into the ether; uploaded nicely, but ignored when the scripts attempted to move the file from a now-empty directory to their final resting place, and cleared by automatic purgers later in the day. Apologies. If you’ve submitted a file since the end of last week, you should do so again. (I know it works now; I just submitted a movie for an uploader who thought the problem was on his end.) We’ve got tons of bandwidth left this month; here’s hoping a lot of people have decent movies to submit! Update: Sorry, still busted; for some reason, it’s truncating files at 10 MB after the upload. Until I figure out why, please hold off on uploading. (I’ll post something as soon as I’ve solved the problem.) Update 2: Okay – it’s working again. I blame the gnomes.

Geary noticed a new MasterChief-related episode of PHW Weekday strip (we mentioned an older ep, at a different URL, back in December) – semi-odd stuff. (It’s predominately a Half-Life 2 comic, but the Master Chief is a regular character.)

What a weekend. There’s Halo news in them thar hills… but I haven’t found time to tell you about it. Let’s start with a new video from The PromethianGuard, sister clan to the PraetoriaGuard – they’ve released their first episode, downloadable from their forum. (There’s also a PSP-friendly version, here.) It’s a variety pack, a grab-bag of stuff; music, jokes, gameplay. 62 mb, WMP9 format, it’s pretty hefty; almost 13 minutes long. Go grab a copy! Thanks to a number of PromethianGuard members – Tactic was first. (And as a side note – happy birthday to LordGideon, head of the PraetoriaGuard and sort of a godfather to the PromethianGuard!