Heh – over on Bungie.net, Frankie points out a new batch of Letters to the Webmaster. (Oh, hey, look, he was first on our forum, too.) For the record, the ‘Louis’ who asked the final question was as made up as the info in the answer.

Last night, the MPRRS failed – by a tiny margin – a submission by our own Cybrfrk. (I think they penalized him for lack of vowels.) I watched the film… and it was silly. Silly enough to make me laugh. I have a soft spot in my heart for the song that makes up the majority of its soundtrack. You can grab it in WMP9 format (10.7 mb) or QuickTime format (10.8 mb). And if you find it silly, too… good. Update: Looks like Cybrfrk had planned to resubmit this, incorporating the feedback of the reviewers. (Whoa – surprise… the guy who RUNS the section actually believes in the ideas behind it!) My bad – he’s going to have a fixed version up soon. We’ll swap it in for this (and make a note of the swap) when he’s done. Update 2: Links are back up – sorry for the delay!

XerxdeeJ has updated his Tied the Leader blog again, this time with a look at sportsmanship, and what it means. Interesting questions – ones that come up quite a lot in post-game lobbies, mixed in with words like ‘cheap’ and ‘camper’… but are the complainers justified… or are they just scrubs?

Z, over at Halo2Forum.com, pointed out a new trailer from Ol Man Makowski – great editing. It’s only 16 mb (WMP9 format) – go grab a copy!

Jay M posted a note on our forum last night – he’s working on a total conversion for Half-Life 2, based on the Fall of Reach novel. Quite a bit of planning has gone into this – read the design document in his post to see where they want to go with it. They’re looking for help; if you’re interested, contact info is all laid out for you!

Rockslider continues to refine his spiral path megabattle on Assault on the Control Room – the current writeup explains how to get 50+ enemies to fight at once, consistently! Check out the link in his post.

Last night, there was a ‘rematch’ between HBO and Bungie, to make up for last week’s… um, matchup. I’ve written up a forum post which explains what happened – we definitely got toasted last week, but it was more on the web than it was on XBL. Things were a little… different this week. KP posted links to the games as soon as they were over, and this morning I wrote the wrapup mentioned above. I can’t wait to see the Frankie Spin on B.net.

Ack! Pete Parsons, Bungie’s Studio Manager for the last 3 years (and a little), is retiring. It’s probably just as well, once folks get a look at the picture that graces his farewell interview at Bungie.net… go read, and get a sense of who this guy is, just before he takes his spectabulous marketing skills off into the sunset (but cover your eyes at the picture). Pete – we’re gonna miss ya.

This one’s offtopic… except for the people involved. Great read, though. Over at CGSociety, there’s a tutorial by Mike Hill – if the name doesn’t sound familiar, search our news archives. The tutorial isn’t Halo-related, it shows how he put together a specific piece (and there’s a ton of interesting info in there, even for non-artists like me)… but in the short blurb at the end, he credits Craig Mullins as his main inspiration – not for this particular piece, but for his desire to be a concept artist in the first place! Coolness. Thanks to Veegie for the heads-up.

Today’s One One Se7en – low point in pun-ditry? You bet.

Finn has put together an awesome reading list for folks interested in the Halo universe – it includes recommendations from Joe Staten and Eric Nylund, as well as some from Finn himself. Swing by the Halo Story page and bury yourself in words!

Se7en One sent along another 3D mural rendering for the Hall of Murals page – he’s a bit worried about the next one, but grab a video copy of Mural 2 in the meantime!

Yesterday, SketchFactor posted a news item at Bungie.net about some new gear at the Bungie Store. The Odd Ball T rocks! Check it all out.

The Killer Grunts Contest came to a close last night, and voting was tallied this morning. You can see all entries (and the votes they received) on the Results page. Congratulations to the 7 winners (who will be contacted by email with prize info) – and congratulations to the community, who managed to pick 7 3rd-party-art-free entries, negating the need to disqualify ANYBODY. w00t!

MLGPro.com has posted Part IV of their Newcomers Guide to Halo 2 – this one focuses on how to prepare for MLG tournaments. Great read, as usual. Thanks again, 3Suns.

imSuck, of HaloGrid.com, put together a new machinima piece called ‘Frequency’ – the Covenant tries out a new weapon. Film quality is REALLY high, cinematography is quite good. This thing breezed through the MPRRS in just a few hours. Swing by HaloGrid to download it – we’re providing a couple of links there (WMP9 and QuickTime), and PraetoriaGuard is providing a WMP9 link. Fun stuff!

Thanks to Sorahn, who pointed out this video at Google (and if you visit GameTrailers.com, you can find higher quality versions in both WMP9 and QuickTime – pretty nicely done!