Stuntmutt and Ross Mills have both reported in with word of a new ad campaign in the UK – Stuntmutt heard a radio ad that was truly subtle:

10 sec if I’m any judge – it was the Halo monks chanting the theme. Then a deep, old man’s voice says “from November 11th, work won’t matter any more.” No other branding.

(Classy!) If we can get copies of these (and permission to host them), we will. Likewise, Ross saw Halo 2 posters up around a college campus in southern England with the tagline “Come November 11th, Lectures won’t matter any more.” These are my kind of ads! Update: Ross tells us it was Tiana Whatley who actually found the posters.

Speaking of Nile Rogers, Gamespy continues their week-long coverage with an interview of the man, discussing how he got involved in the soundtracks, and on to more general topics, like how music fits into games (and how it differs from other entertainment media). It’s huge, and it’s fascinating. Go read. Many people sent this in – looks like DirtyDozen was the first.

New content at Nilerogers.com – they’ve put up video recorded during the Steve Vai sessions. Streaming vid (Flash format) – a great look behind the scenes! Check it out. Update: Oops! In my haste to mention the video piece, I neglected the new audio snippet also available – Connected, by Hoobastank. The snippet is 1:20 long, and 1.3 mb large, and sounds very different from everything that’s come before it. Go listen (and check out the new mini-screen on the Listening Station Flash page!).

HALO4U has updated his eponymous website – including an interview with… um, me. Except for getting my gender wrong on the front page (I suppose Louis looks a lot like Louise), it’s a solid representation – go read.

It’s been mentioned around the net (for example, here on Rampancy.net) that attendees to yesterdays’s I Love Bees ‘Training Exercises’ (multiplayer Halo 2 gameplay) received commemorative DVDs – at least one person has already ripped it and put it up for BitTorrent download. Unfortunately, there’s only a single seed at the moment (with a full copy), so downloads will be relatively slow until more people finish the download. If you’re up for a 2.4 GB download, and want to see what was given out to the lucky attendees, this might be your chance. (Thanks to Mike J for the heads-up.)

Matt Slagle wrote a sizeable piece on piracy, and how it’s affecting gamemakers, for the AP newswire. So far I’ve seen it on Yahoo News, MSN.com, The Globe and Mail (Canada), and the Washington Post. I’m sure it’ll show up elsewhere. It’s a good read – and not just because he quoted me. :-> Thanks to everyone who wrote in about this.

FTC 15, released to members a few days ago, is now available to the masses. 9:10 long, in DivX and QuickTime formats, weighing in at 32 and 31 mb, respectively… go watch. (There are BitTorrent links you should use if you can.) Thanks, Andrew!

Halo Babies has posted the final episode in the 30-strip series that started in April. The door’s open, though… the news post makes it clear that Gruntsbane is taking a break for a bit – the site will continue with fan art and contests, but new ‘official’ strips will be a little bit down the road.

Just a quick note – individual shops that are having special events at midnight on Tuesday have begun to write to us, asking us to let people know what they’re up to. I’d love to – but we can’t (unless you want the news page of this site to consist of hundreds of these announcements every day). I’ll make a blanket statement – a HUGE percentage of gaming emporiums are doing something cool on Monday night – call your favorite and see what’s up there! (Sorry about this.)

Ontario’s London Free Press has an article on enigmatic Cananimator Nathan “bentllama” Walpole, a native of that fine city. Some good background there, for all you Llama-fans. 😉 Thanks go to NiZZZZ for the mention. Update: Just to give credit where it was due – Steve Patterson sent in a scan (202K) of this article early this morning – I was simply holding it until the newspaper was no longer for sale. [-lwu]

Ace unpaid and unofficial reporter John Rivas notes that IGN’s latest countdown article deals with the ILB experience, which apparently ended last night. More news as events warrant.

John Rivas writes to mention that Gamespot has an article (as does IGN) that discusses a few stores in the midwestern states that may or may not have broken the retail date embargo. Before you go careening down the highway, crossing state lines, evading the various law enforcement agencies of the land, and ending up in a huge destructive car chase through downtown Chicago, make sure you read the article(s). And remember that Microsoft legal is probably way ahead of you.

As mentioned a few posts back, I made it into ESPN’s Cold Pizza Halo 2 event today. My experiences are relayed here!

A number of people noticed that Bungie.net’s Stats page was up for a short time – at the moment, it seems that ALL of Bungie.net is down. I’d expect it’ll be like this for the next few days – they’ve got an awful lot of stuff that has to work by Tuesday, so be patient.

ZiplocBodyBag and Cybrfrk have grabbed a second G4TV commercial starring the RvB team – this one is Church and Sarge, and it’s only 10 seconds. 1.6 mb, hi-res QuickTime format. Enjoy!

Not really Halo-related, but Dave Scully (Sargeant Johnson) rocks, so it’s worth a read. Dave will be hosting The Lunchtime Show with David Scully, a political satire show broadcasting on Sundays from 12:30 to 1:00 at the Static Factory. Thanks to Frankie at Bungie.net for the heads-up!

Gamestyle got the lowdown on ten super-secret features of Halo 2 – I’ll guarantee you haven’t read about ANY of these! Thanks, Lothar Hex.

Adam Daniel found ANOTHER New York Times piece today – a piece about Blockbuster video game launches. Focus? Yep. Halo 2. Go read!

The Halo 2 launch is even gonna be big in Singapore. Read about it.