gwdpto, the brains behind coerce.net and the HBO-COERCE Halo PC server, put up a post about the state of the HPC server. They’re moving to a new location, and there’s a $100 setup fee… so he’s looking for small donations from the community. For a $5 or $10 donation, you get a coerce.net email address (with pop3 access) and 10 mb of web space. If you enjoy playing on the COERCE server… drop him a few bucks! (They’re also looking for new admins, for anyone interested in kicking in a regular amount to cover the rental costs.)

One One Se7en tells you what NOT to do this afternoon. Take notice.

Halo: Resolution continues the saga of Keyes and GS; did you know what Keyes’ suit is made of?

The Evolution of Halo release, via p2p networks, a couple of days ago was a pretty big success; I don’t have Two Degrees stats, but BitTorrent dowload numbers are in the 5000 range in the past 30 hours… that’s half a terabyte of files transferred, and the hit on HBO-related servers was LESS than our normal traffic. That ROCKS. A couple of standard http-type links have popped up; if you’re behind a firewall, or on some other connection that makes p2p sharing not an option for you, you can grab the file in the standard way from one of these sites. (If more come online, we’ll continue to add links to the Mirror list.) For those interested: one of the links (Gamespot DLX) is a new service, offered by Gamespot; file downloads are free, though you do have to register. Speeds are quite fast, and there’s no queue (or at least, I never saw one). They DID re-encode the movie; it’s listed on the page as 150 mb, but it’s really 161.12 mb. (Don’t make the mistake I made, and cancel your download at 155 mb, thinking it’s corrupt…) They’re offering it in MPG format, for those who have trouble with DivX and QuickTime. (And yes, they asked first.)

Halo Babies has made their current strip visible for the general public. (Normally, we won’t be posting this information; just like with Red vs Blue, when there is an early release for sponsors, and a regular release for the general public, we’ll post once, when it’s first available (as we did yesterday), and it’ll be up to you to remember to revisit if you haven’t sponsored. However, in this case, there’s some new Fan Art posted, as well, so a second post is warranted.)

Farsight has posted another First Strike Mod Weekly Update on our forum; they’re making progress on several fronts, but the included artwork is just disturbing.

TS.Films has decided to open a new section of their website; it will be devoted to Tournaments. They’re hoping to provide a centralized location where folks can post information about upcoming tourneys in their area, or results and recaps from tournaments they participated in. They’ve started the ball rolling with recaps of a couple of their own tourneys. Swing on by and send ’em YOUR info!

A number of people have written to us about those Special Edition Halo-branded Xboxes; they’re available in Australia now, and they WILL be available in the US, very soon. I’m sure the list of countries where you can buy one is much, much longer than this… but I think we’ve gotten the point across; if you’re interested in this, contact your local Xbox dealer to find out if they’re available where you are, but you don’t need to send us more mail about this.

BOLL is still playing the Flash game… though I warn you, don’t open this with your volume set high. And don’t open it at ALL if you’re epileptic.

Finn writes to mention a ‘small’ update on the Halo Story Page… sort of like King Kong is a ‘little ape’. Go check out the latest dredging from the HSP mailbag.

Recently, we mentioned a special edition Halo-branded Xbox for sale in Korea – ZigZag Master pointed out one that’s being marketed in New Zealand. You get a green Halo-branded console, a green S-controller (with the ‘X’ in the center replaced with a Halo logo), plus the game, in a box labeled ‘Elite Force Pack’ for $399 NZ (about $260 US). For reference, street price is about $379 NZ, $50 NZ ($32 US) more than the standard black box WITHOUT Halo. Roughly speaking, there’s no real markup for the Halo branding.

Calvin and Halo looks at alternatives to plasma-based weapons that might be more available to a 6-year-old.

Today’s Guest One One Se7en comes from Shalashashka Snake – and it looks at one aspect of the Chief’s day-to-day functioning that I would probably be fine not thinking about at all, thank you.

Once again, Halo Babies has released their comic early for sponsors. I liked it a lot. (It was actually released on Monday, but I just noticed now, thanks to Rampancy.net.) It will be out for the general public on Friday.

The Battleground: Halo Mailbag has been updated. (Well, it was updated a couple of days ago, but site troubles kept it from being visible at first.) Dunno… Viper seems a little… angry.

CENOBITE, an artist mentioned a few times in our news, has been spotlighted over at the Junkyard; go read about what makes him tick.

That Weasel Television is currently hosting a RAFT of new movies; some we’ve announced here, a couple are exclusive to them. They’ve got direct downloads of the Evolution of Halo video, both halves of the Trickety Trick vid released recently, and a pair of short vides from Dre and TnP that aren’t hosted anywhere else. Check it out!

kerrhalla452 has released a new Halo 2 MC skin, over at Halomods; it’s pretty slick-looking. Thanks to c4trmnator for the heads-up.

Project Halo is hosting two new contests on their forum; one to name their group, the other to replace ‘Project Halo’ as the project name. Rules and prizes can be found in this thread on their forum.

The Nightmare Armor guys visited Bungie’s offices yesterday; you can see their helmet on the Webcam, at the moment. Webshift popped onto our forum to thank Bungie for the opportunity, and to mention that they would be at the the South by Southwest film festival in Austin next week. (Red vs Blue will be there, too – check their website for a full schedule of their events.) Halo is EVERYWHERE.