Today’s One One Se7en takes a subtle shot at a certain type of Xbox Live player. The thing is… if this is you, you probably won’t get it.

Guess I went too long this time between Fan Fiction updates – there are 24 stories and poems to read today. Get cracking!

Gah. I totally spaced on putting this up earlier this week. insidi0us continues his work on speedruns (yeah, I know, we should be leaving this stuff to High Speed Halo… but insidi0us sends it here, and it’s just so amazing!) – his latest target is Two Betrayals. The current run is only on Normal difficulty… but he shaved SO much time off the Going Nowhere Fast record of 25:03 that I couldn’t pass it up. He finished the level in… yep, 11:52. (!!!!) Probably the sweetest move in the run comes at around 9:20… but man, the whole run just kicks. This is big – because it’s long – and the quality isn’t fantastic… but if you’re a fan of speedruns, you gotta see this. (He released a 17:23 Legendary run last month, so while he might not be able to get a sub-12-minute run on that difficulty, we know for sure he can beat the previous record by at least a third.) Two Betrayals, less than 12 minutes: WMP9 is 87 mb, QuickTIme is 90 mb.

Halo Babies has put up a new strip today… it, too, sends birthday wishes to Halo 2. It also points out one of the hazards of the Spartan uniform…

We got word from Dennis Powers that there’s been a resurgence in HaloCE interest in the past month – more than 47 different maps have been released since October 1 (bringing the total available for download at Halo Maps to 568). Maps are getting more sophisticated since the release of the complete Halo tag set in October. Swing by and see what you can find! While you’re there, you can check out the Halo CE Chronicles DVD – he’s giving out the entire story (two seasons, 20 eps) to folks who’ve donated $10 or more to the website.

Day by Day followed up yesterday’s Halo-related cartoon with another Halo-related cartoon (here’s the direct link, again) – this one’s even funnier if you’ve ever run across that marine in Delta Halo… thanks again, SteelGaribaldi.

Podcast updates we’ve been lax on… Podtacular released episode 24 on Monday, and episode 25 yesterday. Gamertag Radio released episode 29 Wednesday (happy birthday, Halo 2!). 2old2type released episode 12 yesterday. MLG PwnCast released episode 3 last night. Go listen! Update: The MLG PwnCast Ep III was accidentally switched for Ep II – it’s now been fixed.

Broken Console Productions have released Episode 10 of The Squadron – once again, the humans escape from the jaws of certain death. Poor Durge… this one is WMP9-only, for the time being. Go grab a copy.

XerxdeeJ has sent along another weekly update for Tied the Leader – and there’s some great reading in there. There’s a piece looking at some of the characters in movie history where the voice actor, the person who arguably made the role memorable, was not the person who physically acted the part. (Yes, this is an argument – and a solid one – in favor of keeping Halo’s voice actors for the movie roles.) There’s a collection of real-life items that are mirrored in Halo… and there’s yet another rant against cheaters on Xbox Live.

Gavin Free, better known as Gavino over at Red vs Blue, was the proud winner of Lorraine McLees’ Fight the Flood sketch in the recent Blow Me Away charity auction. The first round of shipments went out a couple of days ago (Bungie, specifically Jeff Todd, Alta’s assistant, was ASTOUNDINGLY fast in the packing/shipping of these; the unshipped items are due to lack of info we’ve asked for from the buyers, or (in a couple of cases) lack of payment so far) – and Gavin sent along photos of his prize:

• Da Box
• Da Wrapped Pic
• Da Pic
• Da Pic on Da Wall

Once again – to everyone who participated in this event… our heartfelt thanks for your help in the hurricane relief effort! And Gav… enjoy. 😉

Matchbox 360 is running a double-team competition next Friday, November 18, at 7 pm GMT. The winners will get copies of Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Chaos theory and Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Summit Strike (one copy each, total). Swing by if you’d like to participate! Update: though it doesn’t actually mention it in the rules, this tourney is UK-only.

1UP.com has posted a Halo 2 retrospective, looking back at the history of the game, in honor of its one-year anniversary. Thanks, Tomas.

Dustin Kaufman pointed out that last month, Hamilton Camp, the voice of the Prophet of Mercy in Halo 2, passed away from a heart attack. It’s unclear at this point whether the voice talent from the games will be reused where appropriate in the Halo movie (though I’d suggest that it would be a good thing if it were) – but this is one voice that has been silenced.

The Codex Series has gotten a lot of attention this year – and rightly so; it’s a pretty impressive machinima series from a lot of different perspectives. Recently, the entire crew headed out to LA to film a piece for mtvU’s Gamer’s Ball – they’ve written up the entire experience (with pictures) on their website. The show will air sometime next week – keep an eye out for it!

SteelGaribaldi points out that Halo is mentioned in the political comic Day By Day. I(If you’re reading this later than November 10, you can see the cartoon itself here; the site doesn’t allow for full-page linking based on URL.)

Over at HaloDev, there’s another massive update about Prometheus, the all-in-one Halo editor being developed. There’s far too much to describe in this news post – go read, and see where they are! Thanks, Nick.

Chairleg Productions has posted a new movie – it’s called ‘Waiting in Line’, and it’s available in WMP9 and MP4 formats (the latter for PSP). If you grab the PSP version, be sure to save it under “/MP_ROOT/100ANV01”. This vid highlights the quintessentially British queueing system, as Spartans wait for their Xbox360s – funny! Go watch.

In honor of the one-year anniversary of the release of Halo 2, there’s a huge retrospective posted at Bungie.net. Bungie insiders, press representatives, and some loser fansite maintainer reminisce about the past year, and how Halo 2 has changed it. Great pics (Alta is hot in a formal evening dress), great memories. Go read. And then get on XBL and play! (Thanks, Frankie. For everything except the Kenny Rogers shot.) Update: Frankie is very unhappy that I passed over the whole ‘Halo looks totally awesome in 720p running on an Xbox360 which you better have already ordered if you want to see this before the turn of the century’ thing. It IS pretty cool; I passed over it because I’ll be old and grey before I have a 360. Oh, wait…

The votes (almost 25,000 of them) have been tallied for the 2005 version of the Guilt O’ Lantern contest… and the winners are repeat offenders! Michael Coffing, who took first place last year, did it again this year, with his Arbiter and Master Chief pumpkin. Eric Rodrigues, who took second place last year, pulled in both the second and third place prizes this year, with his renditions of Tartarus and Cortana. Both winners will be contacted via email about their prizes – but in the meantime, you can browse the pumpkins and view the final scores. Congrats to everyone who entered, and made this contest a success again!

Over at TeamXbox, there’s an interview with Nile Rogers about the future of audio in gaming – Halo, and Marty O’Donnell, are credited with putting Sumthin Else Music (Rogers’ company) on the track it’s currently on. Thanks, Tempus Fugit.