We got word from ThatWeasel’s girlfriend that ThatWeasel, a staple in the Halo community for several years, passed away on February 7. We don’t really have any information on what happened (and his girlfriend is a little too broken up to go into it)… but it was clearly sudden, and unexpected. It’s always hard when a community member goes… we’ll miss you, TW. (His site will continue, at least for the near future; his girlfriend will take over running it.)

Heh – cool. gunluva created a bunch of Halo weapons out of duct tape, cardboard, and some popsicle sticks – you can see pictures in his Red vs Blue profile’s images section if you have an account there, or direct-linked in this forum post if you don’t.

Seventeen new pieces in the Fan Fiction section this week – go read. (Side note: I try to post fanfic on Fridays – but sometimes Fridays are crazy days, and it doesn’t happen. There is almost nothing related to the administration of this website more annoying than being publicly berated for not posting someone’s content; if you think I’ve slighted you, you’re welcome to send me email, but posting in a public forum is NOT the way to get on my good side. There’s a new rule related to the Fan Fiction section: if you post publicly, asking why I haven’t put up your story yet, your story will be deleted from the queue. Petty? Yep. Will it get the message across to folks who are just a little too impatient for my tastes? ::shrug:: I don’t know – but either way, the problem is solved, as far as I can see.)

Mintz sends word that Halo Portable has a music pack of stuff from Patriarch917, new wallpapers for everyone, and the Weekly Update, formatted for your PSP

HaloPlanet mentioned the release of PodTacular Episode 49 back on Thursday – I kept forgetting to post it. (Been a rough few days here…) Speculation about Halo 3 is the big subject. Go listen!

Wow – swing by Halo2Forum and grab a copy of this Flag Tactics vid (58MB, WMP9 format) – some pretty amazing techniques. Most of ’em would be pretty hard to pull off in an actual game – but a few look pretty straightforward, and might just change the CTF games you play. (The Lockout flag tosses are totally feasible, and mimic some of the superfast captures I remember from Hang ’em High.) Thanks, Z.

Today’s Weekly Update is, unsurprisingly, mostly about the Halo 2 for Vista announcement yesterday. It’s worth a read, especially if you feel betrayed. There’s also some pretty droolworthy stuff about upcoming Halo novels , and a rather disturbing picture. And, of course, you can read it locally if you so choose. I haven’t been to the forum yet, but I’ve no doubt Frankie was first with the announcement. Hang on… yep.

There’s a Lost the Lead update – Pinkuh meets some weird people online! Awesome artwork. Check it out! (Pinkuh pointed it out on the forum.)

Captain Spark turned in another 19 dialogue snippets – you can snag them from his website, or peruse them in our Dialogue Databank. He’s baaaack…

You didn’t think Stuntmutt was gonna miss a chance to comment on yesterday’s Halo 2 PC news, did you? Go read One One Se7en.

You might remember LatinoReview.com – last November, they posted a review of the Halo script, which stirred up a little bit of controversy. Today, they posted a review of the Casino Royale script… and buried at the bottom is a small note of interest to Halo movie news watchers:

Also we just got word that D.B. Weiss, the writer of the excellent spec script KASHMIR, which was one of my top 5 scripts of 2004 is rewriting HALO. Expect an official announcement soon.

Go read the rest of it for El Mayimbe’s comments… and this time around, think twice before screaming “fake!” (It’ll be interesting to see if/when this news makes it public in more standard channels…)

Okay, this is a little over the top, if you ask me. Josh Smith decided to write a blog post on the frequency of profanity during Halo 2 online play. Granted, it’s one person’s experience, and it’s gathered from a pretty small total sample (34 hours of gameplay – back in October, Frankie stated that more than 180 million hours had been logged, so we’re talking about a 0.00002% sample size – and that doesn’t even COUNT the hours played in the last 4 months)… but geez. Thanks, 3Suns.

Team3D, consistently one of the top pro Halo teams, is gearing up for MLG’s National Championships in New York at the end of this month, and Saiyan has taken a few minutes out to chat with F13ND about their hopes and expectations. Go read!

On the anniversary of their first episode, the Codex Series team has released information about The Heretic, a new series in production. Cause for excitement from folks who like good machinima! Thanks to many for noticing – but squattingb was first ( even beating Nerrolken’s own email by a couple of hours). Go read about it!

Heh – Larry Peterson found this picture, and wondered… have the Forerunner been building in Mexico City?

Jillybean updated the Halo Story Page this morning – but the note got lost in the flurry of Vista-related mail. You should go read it, if you like having your brain wrapped around like pretzel dough.

Over at Bungie.net, Frankie’s posted a pretty large article about the whole Halo 2 on Vista thing; there’s an awful lot of “we’ll provide you with more details in the future”… but there’s also some decent info. Bungie’s not doing the conversion, but they’re helping. (It’s not being farmed out to a 3rd party developer, like Halo was; the conversion is being done by an internal MGS team.) No (real) word on a Mac version yet. There’s also some cut-and-paste PR on Windows Vista… which might make you wonder a bit about the “we’re not doing this to sell a new operating system” answer. (But only a bit.) As you get closer to the bottom, you can pretty much stop reading; the answers to every single question are ‘we haven’t said anything yet’. Whee! (I’m sure that’s as frustrating for Frankie as it is for us.)

TastedBigworm found an odd little Halo comic at Lifemeter… that seems like bad sportsmanship. (But fun, probably.)

A little birdie pointed out a trailer over at apple.com for a movie coming out next month: Duck Season was made by Mexican director Fernando Eimbcke, and covers a day in the life of two fourteen-year-old boys. The Halo angle? Heh. Watch the trailer.