Blade writes to say that he’s back, with his own domain. Go visit TeamHalo.net for details!

We got mail from ‘pimp’ of the Ptown_Players, an online Halo clan based in the Southwest US. They’ve put together a bunch of sounds they use with XboxConnect, and wanted to share them with the world. The collection (7 sounds) is about a quarter-meg, zipped, and you can grab it from our Miscellaneous section.

Joshua Rhoads writes to tell us about Halo 2 Leagues; no games yet (obviously, since the game’s not out yet), but they’re ready!

Catching up on email – sorry folks. Several people wrote in (or posted on our forum) about the Gamespy Grudge match going on right now; Halo Warthog vs U.S. M1A1 Abrams tank. The tank is kicking butt right now… but maybe that’s as it should be? (Grudge match is down at the bottom of the left column, if you haven’t voted yet.) Seems like the Scorpion would have been a fairer choice.

The buzz around Halo sites this morning (besides the egg on my face) is a mod being created by Mrs_Doublefire, over at the Gearbox Forums. The thread’s been going for quite some time… but recently, there have been some very impressive screenshots posted. An easy place to see them (without wading through dozens of forum pages) is over at CobaltNova. Thanks to Murdoc517, who pointed out the thread in our forum, and Rams, of Battleground: Halo, who pointed out the CN writeup.

So when Stuntmutt runs out of material, where does he go? Why, to the pros, of course! Read today’s One One Se7en. (The sound effects are what make it.)

Monday’s Halo: Resolution dealt with lag. Did you think, given the subject, that the jokes would end quickly? Think again.

To the folks who’ve been sending us mail, asking us when (or even if) they’re going to get their prizes for the Great Halo Scavenger Hunt – they should be on their way. Ciarán Walsh just got his – and he lives in Ireland. SketchFactor apologized a few days ago for the delay – better late than never, right?

Some pretty negative responses to my wording of the Xbox Addict interview that didn’t happen – turns out Reclaimer posted an explanation of the situation (which I neglected to look for) on Monday night. It appears to have been a miscommunication – but the XBA forumgoers were pretty offended that I misjudged. Sorry about that. The bottom line, for me: I would be THRILLED if every Xbox site out there got an interview with Bungie; I’m as anxious as the rest of you for a lifting of this media grey-out about Halo 2.

The puzzle team of Skavenger, BOLL, c0ld vengeance, and MorningStar have cooked up a new challenge for you. (It was first announced on our forum just before Christmas, although it doesn’t actually begin, for real, until January 15th.) It’s an email-based game for points and prizes; you sign up at the Yahoo Group halo_puzzles, and you get puzzles emailed to you. Send your answers back to win! (More details can be found at the site.) These guys know what they’re doing… give it a shot!

Interview news: in case you missed it, the call for interview questions (that we posted in good faith yesterday) was a load of hogwash; they’d never gotten any permission from anyone at Bungie to do anything LIKE what they said they were planning. I guess the ploy worked, however, insofar as they were probably looking for site hits, and that’s just what they got. (The forum thread we linked to no longer exists.) On the REAL interview front, however, TeamXbox has put up a request for questions for Frank O’Connor, formerly of Official Xbox Magazine (with ties to TXB), now with Bungie… and this one is legit. Go ahead, fill out the form on that page with your question. These will really GET to Frank. Update: For those who run across this news post and miss our followup – XBA’s motives were unfairly called into question here; the situation (explained in the followup forum thread on XBA’s forums) was far less cynical than I made it out to be.

Wonga. Ed Fries, Microsoft’s VP of Game Publishing, and a huge Xbox promoter (and Halo advocate) from the very start, resigned today. What will this mean for Microsoft in general, and Bungie in specific, in the future? Too soon to tell… Thanks to Lophan for sending in the Bloomberg update. (I couldn’t find a web version at Bloomberg’s site, so here’s a story at TeamXbox.com.

A note came in last week, just in time for me to read before leaving for San Francisco. I’d hoped it would make it into the next Miscellaneous Art update, which (I’d also hoped) would be coming soon. Well, it can STILL make it into the update, but that update isn’t coming right away, and this picture is pretty slick, so I’m putting it up now. The note came from Ryan Sellers, whose wife Heather painted this life-size Master Chief (well over 6 feet tall, 181k image) on a friend’s wall. Now THAT would be something interesting to wake up to!

Oh, my goodness. Somehow, I missed this the first time round, and so did everyone else here. Ouch. Blackstar put together a short (55 second, 6.7 mb) QuickTime MP4 vid using footage from a single cutscene in Halo and audio from The BBC’s version of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. It works beautifully. Thanks to Narcogen, at Rampancy.net, for pointing it out.

And, of course, your daily dose of One One Se7en – today from rapture, who must be reading my email again.

Today we’ve got another Calvin and Halo for you – this one is Warbow’s, and it’s bringing back memories…

Synide has put together a rambling, 6+ minute long film showing… well, lots of stuff. It’s called ‘WTF LAG‘, and even starts out showing a few clips explaining this expression in humorous fashion… but quickly moves on to gameplay tricks, funny situations, and downright awesome skillz on the battlefield. (There’s a 20 second segment where synide takes out two full jeeploads of enemies AND returns the flag, while under continuous attack from the other two members of the opposing team… and he does it alone.) Some of this will make you wonder why you’re watching it. Other chunks you’ll want to watch again. It’s huge (82 mb, for a 640×480 film; some segments are in 4-player splitscreen mode, so I didn’t feel comfortable shrinking it down), and as I said, it rambles… but if you’ve got the patience, it’s a lot of fun. Mythica’s hosting it, though if things get ugly we’ll toss up some other mirrors. (If you’ve got space, feel free to grab a copy and send us the link…) Update: That Weasel writes to say that not only has he mirrored this movie, but he’s made a 320×240 QT6 version of it (22.1 mb), and mirrored Blackstar’s Marvin movie. Check his HBO Mirror page for details. Update 2: Thanks to KP, who took time out from his busy schedule of waxing his legs to put up another mirror on his website.

Mad Cow pointed out a thread over on the Gearbox forums; Hellface made it clear, a couple of days ago, that the Halo Editing Kit is still a little ways away. On the plus side, the delay is due in part to some ‘huge new features’ in the app itself… Okay, I’m sitting on my hands again. I’ll be good.

24 pieces for you in today’s Fan Fiction update; that’s what happens when I skip a day or two.

• Life Workin for HBO, Part Seven, by Hunter_Killer
• All Roads Lead To Sol…Just Make Sure To Bypass Mars: Chapter 19, by S7N
• ODST Marching Cadence, by Helljumper
• Marooned Chapter 12, by Steve Ollett
• Return to the Ring : part1, by MasterCD
• Prologue – Jungle Raid, by Tyrian
• A Series of Wierd Events – Sequel, Part Three[STERFRYE], by Hunter_Killer
• A Series of Weird Events – Sequel, Part One[COLD BLOODED], by Hunter_Killer
• A Marine Named Peters: Get Ready, Get set, Reminisce!, by GLADIATRRR3000
• A Spartan’s Path – chapter 12, by Myth
• In My Mind, by Frensa Geran
• Aurora Squadron-Part 4, by RogueFox
• Return to the Ring2 : Some secrets revealed, by MasterCD
• Halo Poem/Rap, by Solidus
• Shadow Ops II: Chapter Ten, by Agent Shade
• War, by Cerebro
• Desecrating Providence (Prologue Part 1), by Marty
• Galaxy 07 – Part 8 – Family, by Jillybean
• Fall of friends, by Shadowrunner
• The Master Chief Chronicles, by The Guys At the xbox.com forums.
• On A Pale Horse: Rescue, by Silent Hunter
• Survival of the Fittest: The beginning, by MasterCD
• In Chaos and Despair: The 2nd Fall of Harvest, by Maraxus6
• Survival of the Fittest: All in a day’s work (for a Marine), by MasterCD

Note of warning – if an author makes himself completely and utterly unreachable to the admins of this site, they’re playing with fire; if we don’t need to reach you, no problem. If we do… well, it becomes your problem.

GLADIATRRR3000 has created a new Halo Flash animation – you can find it on his Freewebs site. (Comments can be found in this forum thread.)