Frankie’s Bungie Weekly Update for February 13 has been posted at Rampancy.net… it’s exactly what the older fans are expecting, in terms of Updates. Covers where the team stands, who’s doing what… and throws in some Frankie-specific humor, as well. Good stuff!

Today’s One One Se7en, as well, should be posted before the clock turns over. Don’t worry – U2 would be happy if you missed this one.

Before the day is gone, I’d like to put up today’s Halo: Resolution – it looks at a fear I had from the first time I played the level Halo. (Silent Cartographer, too.)

Singh Commando posted a 16-part comic this morning on our forum. He wasnt’ sure how long the bandwidth would last, so we put up a mirror of it for him; it’s quite good. (I even stole his Slideshow code to display it, though I cleaned it up a little.) Check out Master Chief vs Darth Vader, a humorous look at what might have happened had two universes collided.

No Red vs Blue episode this week – there was a note on the Sponsors forum from Burnie Burns; he’s not well, and the audio recording couldn’t get done. They’ll be back next week. Thanks to Cybrfrk, who noticed the post.

SESpider has released another Miniature Halo; this one is more of a Thank You to those who have helped along the way, and an apology for the delay in the storyline. The Official Storyline will be continued in Episode 17 – thanks to the help of PsYcHoDaN, who’s also designing a new website. Be on the lookout for it!

MarkHawk has posted a set of desktops to promote his upcoming Halo: Ice Fields movie, due out next month. They’re HUDless shots of Halo in snowy environments; you can find ’em in two sizes on this page.

Bungie.net has an update on the Halo PC Worldwide Championships; the finals take place next Tuesday, in Gardena, CA. Details can be found in this news post… we want reports from anyone there! Update: The official press release for this event got sent to us this morning.

You may have noticed that HBO was offline this evening. We made some major changes – hopefully, they’ll help alleviate the frequent outages we’ve been experiencing recently. (If this DOES work, everyone owes Deimos Fawkes, of Subnova, a HUGE thank-you.)

Halo.Fropco has interviewed the Project Halo: Webwar Evolved team about their work in progress. The interview itself is beefier than the one put up at the Junkyard last week; more info, pretty pictures. If you’re curious about where these guys are going, and how they plan to get there… go read this!

Battleground: Halo has posted the second installment of Viper’s Halo 2: Precognition article (the first installment was posted a couple of weeks ago). This one uses the novels and the game as its basis for speculation, as opposed to the print articles the first part used. Again – it’s speculation, not fact. Read it, think about it, but don’t get mad; he’s not claiming that any of this will actually happen. (While you’re over at BGH, say goodbye to Rams; he’s stepping down as Assistant Site Director as of next month. We’ll miss you, Rams!)

Today’s Guest One One Se7en comes from Crouchelle, and it clears up one of the great mysteries of Halo PC.

I never knew Cortana was edible… Calvin and Halo showed me the error of my ways.

13 (approved) pieces for you today in the Fan Fiction section:

• The fight for Omega Centauri. Part four: Sound the alarm, by Aonghus Maher
• The Seventh Battalion: Chapter One, by Ajax
• Hidden Threat: Chapter 1 – Briefing, by NBD24
• Halo Installation 01, Chapter 2, by FOrunnER
• The Battle for Earth: part 1, by CommanderElite
• Halo Wing – Chapter One: The More Better Plan Still, by Ermac of VGPro
• Prologue: Zion, by Scimitarex
• Halo: Dark Aftermath Ch. 2: Ambush, by Nick Kang
• Our Cursed Souls: A Field Master’s Tale, by MadJackal
• Athenians-II Chapter 6: Battle for M-2568 Part 2, by ZackDark
• Hit Hard Ch. 2 — Global Defense —, by Nick Kang
• The Dimensional’s Last Stand:Part 2, by skseifer
• Forced Betrayal (Chapter 8: The Last Stand), by CoLd BlooDed

You gotta wonder at the people who CONTINUE to submit non-Halo fiction…

It has been pointed out to me that my gentle ribbing of Stuntmutt over yesterday’s One One Se7en strip was unfair – and so far off the mark as to warrant this apology. So here it is. It is clear, as evidenced by last night’s release of a Security Hotfix for Halo PC, that Stuntmutt’s strip, far from being out of date, was SO topical that it PREdated the real news… the man must use a crystal ball. Or, possibly, the rounded bottom of a crystal vodka tumbler (seen from the inside). In any case, we’ll never doubt his prescience again. Today, at least.

XLNC dropped off another set of beautiful hudless screenshots on our forum recently; he’s even trying his hand at reproducing existing Bungie shots (at much higher resolution, of course). Never ceases to amaze…

A security update has been released for Halo PC this evening; you can find details (and a download link for the updated version of the dedicated server) over at Bungie.net. At the moment, it’s not clear what this means for Mac clients… there’s no patch for Macs yet, so as soon as all the servers have upgraded to handle this security threat, Mac users will be left with no place to play. We’re going to leave HBO-Subnova running 1.03 for the time being, just so they have a home in the HBO family… but apparently, the Mac patch is being worked on, so hopefully the delay won’t be too painful.

Gah. I managed to forget to add this almost until the next one came out… but last week’s Frankie’s Weekly Bungie Update, posted at Battleground Halo, has now been added to the Updates Archive. Sorry about the delay!

Dr. Nick pointed out another Stick Halo Flash animation; it’s more of a teaser, but still fun. (It would be a LOT smaller without the Halo soundtrack…)

Even Stuntmutt’s main One One Se7en strips are subject to posting lag sometimes…