Nothing ever goes as planned – but we’ve finally (FINALLY) finished tallying up the results from the Win A Date With One One Seven contest. The five lucky winners of the Halo 2 Calendars are:

• Taylor Cartwright, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
• Aaron Bayley, Sandbach, Cheshire, England
• Austin Drake, Maize, KS
• Ryan Luevanos, La Jolla, CA
• Jeffrey Howe, Lubbock, TX

It was tough picking through the more than 3,500 entries… huge thanks to Stuntmutt and BOLL for finding the time to make this happen. The winning strips – and 36 runners-up – can be seen in this section. Way to go, everyone!

Note to self: Don’t ever take the afternoon off when Bungie.net is updating. My inbox is FLOODED – literally flooded – with news of a gorgeous new ODST render and a new 343GS-based Wallpaper over at the brand-spankin’-new Bungie.net. If you haven’t already, go grab these. (The 1600×1200 version of the wallpaper is big enough to read the text easily… there are a few tweaks aimed at those Bungie fans who like to read small text. Nicely done, Zo.e!)

Holy moley – when was the last time that Halo: Resolution and One One Se7en covered the same topic on the same day (from different viewpoints, of course)? And what makes it even MORE bizarre… is that it wasn’t planned.

Halo: Resolution looks at a possible crossover title… nah.

It’s raining outside… and you know what they say; when it rains, it pours. Subnova’s new server died last night; steps have been taken to rectify the problem, and we have every hope it’ll be back up and running soon… but in the meantime, Fan Fiction is (once again) offline. Everything else should be running (albeit a bit slower than before) – and we’ll do our best to make things more permanent soon.

There’s been an awful lot of grumbling in the Halo community about the release of the HEK (Halo Editing Kit – it’s been made clear to me that not everyone actually keeps TRACK of these acronyms). Gearbox (through Randy Pitchford) said several weeks ago that they were done with it, it had been passed to Microsoft, and therefore folks should talk to MS if they wanted it released. (The post was subsequently deleted from the Gearbox forum – which suggests, at the very least, that upon reflection, it was decided that this was not the wording they wanted to use.) Since then lots of people have been yelling that MS/Bungie are holding the HEK back, others are yelling that it’s Gearbox’s fault, and the principal parties are keeping their mouths shut. A couple of days ago, Hellface, a Gearbox programmer, posted a vague but promising message on the Gearbox forum – it’s hard to say if it means anything’s coming soon,, but it DOES suggest that in the next week or two, there WILL be news coming. (Whether it’s about the HEK specifically, I couldn’t tell you.) The clearing of clouds? We can only hope. (Thanks to BGH for the heads-up.)

Wolfy, from Sector 7, points out that they’ve posted the third in a continuing series; they’ve analyzed the latest Halo 2 Multiplayer screenshot. When you’re done reading this, you can check out one of the many threads on our forum devoted to the same topic…

Eric Smith points out that Halo just received one of three Editors Choice awards from PC Magazine for best Action/Combat Game for 2004. Nice!

Nice catch. A month ago, we posted a note about a mention of ‘Halo 3’ in a Steve Ballmer speech last fall; we warned that it had never been confirmed, but nevertheless, it was an interesting tidbit. Narcogen, over at Rampancy.net, did a much more thorough reading of the ‘History of Bungie‘ article put up at B.net (I’d actually set it aside for a slightly quieter time), and found a mention of the speech (and a refutation, more or less, of the Halo 3 comment) buried in the Halo 2 section. Nice to have this to point to down the road!

She does it again… Tina Leyk whipped up another Gold Elite pic – this time, it’s the guy at the locked door on Silent Cartographer. I love the lighting! You can find this image on the Art of Tina Leyk page; it’s currently the last image in the ‘Fan Art’ section.

mrsmiley writes about some comics (totally un-Halo-Babies-related) he’s put up in Mr. Smiley’s Xbox Lounge, his Seventh Column chapter. Take a look!

Whoa – missed it; thanks to Ape Man for the heads-up. There’s a brand-new Halo 2 multiplayer shot over at Bungie.net… Wow. I’m lovin’ it. Go look!

Bungie.net is going crazy with new content right now… There is a new music piece (it’s been included on the bonus DVD that comes with the Halo Soundtrack, but has never been released officially on the internet before), and a HUGE contest starting up, with prizes ranging from a trip to Bungie Studios to a Halo-branded Xbox to Halo toys and collectibles. (So that you don’t get your hopes up, this contest is open to US residents only.) At the moment, the actual entry form seems to be a little… off, but give it a few minutes; I’m sure they’ll get it straightened out. (You have until the 25th to register.)

Today’s Calvin and Halo gives pointers on how to look on the bright side. I’d have trouble making a Pelican, too. (Hobbes’ Elite rocks, though.)

Brian Jarrard and Frank O’Connor took time out of their hectic schedules recently to talk to César Berardini, of TeamXbox about the development of the new Bungie.net. Buried amongst the quips and one-liners are some nice little tidbits, and enough Halo content to make this postable here. thanks to ghaleoneb for the heads-up.

Hehe – seems some people have had trouble with the new bungie.net… Preston the Cyberdog discovered a hard-to-find secret feature of the new site, and took a screen (203K). Only from Microsoft…

MonoxideC (in what may be his last act as a member of the Halo modding community, sadly) has released Halo Map Tools 3.5, an update which provides easy Single-Player to Multiplayer conversion, model injection, and a detailed tutorial for both. it’s a 1.3 mb download – get it now!

Halo50k3, a new event from the organizers of the first two Halo50k events, has now been officially announced. (The press release can be found on their website. The highlights: A minimum of $10,000 will be presented to the winners, the tournament will take place in Atlanta on July 24th and 25th, and Major League Gaming has signed on as an official sponsor.) Browse around the site, check out the fun stuff to be found, and get ready for an awesome experience!

You’ve been waiting for it… the day has come. The new Bungie.net has launched… and it’s beautiful. Totally new navigation… new content, new forums, and not one, but TWO new top stories: one details the new tidbits available on Bungie.net, the other takes a serious stroll down memory lane, looking at pre-Xbox Halo (with tons and tons and TONS of high-quality versions of older screenshots, and some NEW older screenshots). (This was originally written many hours ago… as many of you noticed, it’s been up and down all afternoon; it seems, finally, to be solidly up. Explore!

The submission window for the Win a Date with One One Se7en contest is officially closed. Thanks to everyone who participated… the judges will now take on the daunting task of winnowing down the 3500 entries to 5 winners. We should have results for you by Wednesday.