Nine thousand people noticed the new Top Story at Bungie.net – it’s a Dual Wielding guide. Which weapons work together, how to use particular pairs, that sort of thing. First heads-up goes to Swirlfire, who was beaten only by Frankie, it would seem. Every single one of you, however, managed to miss the 7th Column Themes article – there’s a new theme builder (HTML template for messing with) for folks who want to customize their 7th Column chapter – except for The Morningstar.

Homefront, the Battlefield Vietnam mod, is back on Planet Battlefield, ad has a new update – new pics of Alpha Centauri and new Brutes. Check ’em out! Thanks, Grant.

Speaking of Rampancy.net – it looks like they’ve got the beginnings of a Halo 2 Guide up, based on assets from the Halo2.com website. Give it a look!

Wonga – if you play Halo CE, and are tired of slow loading times when you start the program, check out Map Manager, which makes it easy to swap in and out maps for particular sessions. Heads-up goes to Rampancy.net.

Andrew Zulpo, half of the Fire Team Charlie team at Xbox Ottawa, sat down recently with the Junkyard boyz – you can find his Spotlight covering topics like what games not to play on a Nintendo 64, and knowing jack about jack. Thanks, Mhaddy.

Couple of new news posts over at Bungie.net – Frankie posted a few more details (thanks, James P.) about the MTV special coming up next month (we mentioned it a couple of weeks ago), and SketchFactor points out a new Aluminum Cover Journal book and a new hoodie for sale at the Bungie Store.

Another goodie at AussieXbox.com.au today – a Halo 2 prize pack giveaway. Open to Australian and New Zealand residents, entry just requires answering a few easy questions. Thanks again to Gossip.

This could have been written anywhere, but it was written in Central Ohio. The News Journal has a story about a bunch of Ontario High School students playing Halo – waiting for Halo 2. The fact that this is news is the news story for me.

Hawaiian Pig continues his Red vs Blue Set Piece series, even though the HBO forums are down – he just moved them over to the Red vs Blue forums. Nice work on a scene from Episode 40!

Calvin and Halo looks at the spoiler problem today, as well – and Calvin’s solution might be better than my under-the-bed one.

(sexy)Josh Britt wrote to tell us that the radio station he works for is starting a half-hour radio show devoted to Halo, hosted by SexyJosh himself. The first show is tomorrow at 9:30 pm EST, and can be found at www.gameshoutradio.com. (This will be followed at 10 pm by a community chat show, and one of the questions is ‘How do YOU think Half-Life 2 will compare to Halo 2?’ Since they used to be a Half-Life-only radio station, they’re gonna need Halo defenders. Stop by.

Slashdot interviewed Neal Stephenson last week – it’s a fascinating read. (Well, it is if you like Stephenson. I do.) Kudos to Preston the Cyberdog, who noticed a tiny mention of Halo 2 in it. (Question 6 dealt with the melding of games and novels, and Stephenson’s answer involved the I Love Bees phenomenon.)

IGN’s latest article in their Countdown to Halo 2 (you gotta wonder if they’re not thinking, about now, that it might have been better to start this countdown closer to November 9…) is called ‘The 10 Things You Must Have to Play Halo 2‘. On the list is a lot of food, some scantily clad women (not sure how that’s gonna help the girl gamers), and a stereo system. Um… I’d have to say they missed a few important pieces – like Halo 2, an Xbox, and at least one controller. Oh, well.

Okay, I think some of you are going a little overboard. I got several messages yelling at me for not warning people about the spoilers in the new commercial, and I got torn a new one for posting Mothergoat’s newest piece, ‘Death of Cortana’ (even though the FIRST time we mentioned that we made it clear that he got the idea from First Strike, NOT Halo 2, and that he knows nothing about the Halo 2 storyline). If you believe there are spoilers in the new Halo 2 commercial, I’d recommend that you grab a pillow, climb under your bed, and stay there until November 9 – because otherwise you might look out the window, see a schoolbus, and realize that the fate of the universe might rest on the Master Chief RIDING a schoolbus through the sun of the Covenant Homeworld… and be spoiled. In short, people… calm down. If it’s on our front page, I will GUARANTEE that it’s not a story spoiler. Period.

Kevin Ryan writes to point out that Afterwar part 7 is up over at Black Art Studios. Pictures speak louder than words.

A number of people have pointed out that halo2.com has been updated – one of the damaged warthog mini-pics in the Humans section has been replaced with the ATV (though there is no large corresponding version – and no, this doesn’t mean that Bungie was lying when they said the ATV was no longer in the game), and the passworded areas behind the Prophets have been updated to actually CHECK passwords – meaning, presumably, that if you got the right passwords, you’d be able to access the content behind them. I’m pretty sure Leighland Okey was first with the heads-up.

Gossip found a nice article over at Aussiexbox.com.au – the Master Chief has taken over half of a sign that’s belonged wholly to Coke for 30 years. With an appropriate tagline, it looks like the Australian advertisers for this game have put a nice feather in their caps!

There’s a small update over at the Halo Story page – tie-ins between Halo and Ulysses? You bet. Go read! (The machine’s acting flakey these days, so please – if you have trouble connecting, just try again later. You don’t need to tell us there’s a problem – handling the extra flood of email just means it takes us LONGER to fix the problem. Thanks.)

Thank you to the DOZENS of people writing in with links to a small (320×240) version of the newest Halo 2 commercial – but thanks to metaphyber, we’ve got a nice hi-res version for you. 640×480, available in both QuickTime (5.4 mb) or DivX (3.8 mb). We just got word that there’s the copy uploaded to Brian Towne’s community server (mpeg1, 320×240, 5 mb). Grab whatever works for you.

A number of people pointed out that nilerogers.com now has a Listening Station, a small flash app that lets you listen to all four released soundtrack snippets in one window. If you missed any, check it out!