Splitboxer wrote to point out that the first Xbox Connect 4.0 /Aquaduct 2 game happened yesterday (today?). Mac/Xbox Halo players will soon be able to compete head to head with PC/Xbox Halo users. w00t!

Couple of healthy bugs in yesterday’s Sparkedit 3.0 release – they’re fixed in today’s 3.01 release. Details at HaloMods. Thanks, DHalo.

DocOctavius was playing with some freeware modeling tools yesterday… look what he came up with. Pretty nice work, you ask me!

Here’s a Halo Fan Music submission unlike any other we’ve received… this song comes from Mothergoat, the composer of the Hail 117 Anthem, and while it’s Halo-inspired, it’s not as obviously based in Halo’s themes; it’s designed for fan music videos.

Seeing the Oddbrawl video made me realize the Hail 117 Anthem is more theatrical than it is good for constant firefights. So now I bring you “Repeater,” a faster-moving overdrive fury with a good pinch of Halo. There’s a lot of repetition on purpose. The tune was made as background music for use in fan videos. ?Anyone can freely use it by just giving me credit in the video.

It’s a 3 mb mp3, 3:20 long, and as Mothergoat says, would probably work very nicely as a backdrop to Halo carnage. You can grab our local copy.

One One Se7en reaches new highs in lows. I’m only sorry that iMC had to be the one bringing you this pun.

The saga of the Scorpion continues on Halo: Resolution. This one ain’t lag… it’s range.

Knives sent in a rather bizarre pic (29K) that looks to be taken on Halo Xbox. A bunch of folks discussing it on IRC couldn’t make head nor tail of it… so here it is, for the rest of you to speculate about. Post your thoughts to our forum!

Today’s Sunday One One Se7en (assuming I didn’t screw up again and forget one of Stuntmutt’s) is from Wavehawk… and points out a missed (but pretty useful) feature in Halo.

17 pieces for you today in the Fan Fiction section:

• The fall of the covenant Part 1(of 3), by Jetboogieman
• Visions of Purity Part 1: The Spartan, by xitWOUND117
• Mysteries Part 3, by Horror
• Who You Are, by Frensa Geran
• The Enemy Within-Chapter Three: New Hopes, by Mind_Affecting_Parasite
• The cruiser, by retardedmonkey
• The Strive to Survive (Chapter 2: Released), by CoLd BlooDed
• SPARTAN III Chapter 2: Your Problems Begin After You Land, by Winters
• If The Covenant Never Came: Section one-Silva, by guns_n_cars
• A Hard Landing, by CoLd BlooDed
• The Mission Never Given (Pt.1), by Frensa Geran
• The Moral Redemption of Dr. Halsey (Part 2), by Ross Becalick
• Scope (Chapter 2, All Hell is Released), by The Silver Spartan
• Halo: Liberation of Earth – Section 3, by HawkEye
• Halo: The Battle Within. Prologue & Chapter 1, by Bryan D. (A.K.A. B-Man)
• Part one– Amnesia, by Halo_2204
• Life of a grunt, by Jetboogieman

Get to reading – it’ll be tomorrow soon!

SparkEdit 3.0 has been released – swing on by HaloMods for details and a download link. Object Duplication, baby! (Thanks, Turbo)

Blackstar finished his Offensive Tetraboxing lanfest vid, commemorating the massive lanfest held here at HBO HQ a couple of weeks ago. It’s over 9 minutes long, weighs in at a massive 93 mb, and is encoded in MPEG4 format. (As Blackstar says, if you can watch the QuickTime versions of the Red vs Blue vids, you should be fine.) Production quality is quite high – I only wish the recording devices (for gameplay) had been on more boxes; the footage he had to work with didn’t always show the blast this fest really was. It’s currently available at Blackstar Productions, Rampancy.net, Boomerica Enterprises, and files.bungie.org – we’ll add more mirrors if bandwidth begins to get tight. You can ASK Black if he’s willing to have it encoded in other formats… but I’m guessing the answer’s gonna be no; there’s a lot of text that wouldn’t be readable with any big decrease in bitrate. Comments can go in this forum thread.

In just long enough to notice a new Subzero Chronicles comic – hehe, I played in a game like this today. Thanks, MarkHawk. Update: should have read the whole thread… MarkHawk points out a new wallpaper, as well.

SanchezTheLlama has posted his weekly update of Project Halo: Webwar Evolved. A new battle rifle, new music, engine progress… things seem to be progressing nicely! Check it out.

At the risk of generating yet MORE mail complaining about the database problem, I’m posting today’s Guest One One Se7en. It’s from Bridie… and it scares me a little. I think it must be British humor. (I say that because we don’t HAVE Minties here.) Update: my mistake; it’s not a British thing at all, it’s an Australian one.

We’re having some trouble with one of the machines serving HBO pages; if you load a page, and get an error page that says ‘The database failed to initialize’ – please, reload the page. Almost always, it’ll work the second time out. We’re doing what we can to fix this… please be patient. (You don’t need to tell us about it – a few hundred people have already done that. Thanks!)

SESpider, with the help of PsYcHoDaN, has completely overhauled the layout of the Miniature Halo layout, and you can see the results in the latest edition; Miniature Halo Page 17 is now up for viewing. He asks that you please email him (link on the Miniature Halo page) with your thoughts of the new layout – they want to know how you like it!

This week’s Bungie Update can be found at 343GS.com – in their forum. Give it a look – lots of very cool little tidbits. For folks looking for new screenshots or a movie, this isn’t for you… but for people who want to know where the team is, and how the development is going… check it out!

SketchFactor, over at Bungie.net, has written up a full article on the Halo PC World Championship, held recently in Los Angeles. It’s not quite as good as being there… but it’s as close as most of us are gonna get. Check it out!

A quick reminder – tomorrow is the day for the Winter Philadelphia Regional Tournament, run by Major League Gaming. This will feature the biggest Halo tournament ever held in the US, with over 300 competitors and 75 teams already registered. The guaranteed purse has been increased to $16,000, to be awarded to the tournament winners. If you’re anywhere near the Downtown Marriott in Philadelphia tomorrow or Sunday… you’ve gotta go! More details can be found at the Halo Nationals website.

Walshicus updated his Halo Stellar Cartography information, based on requests from fan fiction authors. The map, small Excel file, and text information are all new. (The large 30,000-star Excel file is unchanged.)