Wow, Monday, and we STILL haven’t mentioned this week’s Red vs Blue vid. It’s not a standard episode – it’s a look at how the Blue team makes it to New York for last week’s Film Society of Lincoln Center presentation. (If you ask me, they were FAR too cavalier about the teleporter.)

The continuing saga of a group of our forum regulars and the bizarre events centered around a particular game…

I promised last night to try and shed light on the movie hosting situation here – I’ve put up a page explaining where we currently stand. Suggestions are always welcome… we’re definitely in a bind at this point. Thanks for your patience!

Fire Team Charlie released their 5th movie yesterday; you can find it on their website. Sound quality is vastly improving, and humor quality remains quite high. 16.5 mb, DivX 5 format (though I’ve got a 9.4 mb QuickTime version that I’m going to try and get to them)… go grab it!

Oh, yeah, before I forget – there’s a Sunday One One Se7en for you today. You have to have a long memory, though.

It seems like every time I go on vacation, some crisis erupts around here. Like there’s a Halo god who doesn’t like to see me unchained from my desk… I’ve been made aware of the Mythica-related movie hosting situation, and have seen a lot of emails from people wanting to help, and people wanting more information. It’s a bit too late tonight (i’ve been on the road – literally – for almost 12 hours now), but tomorrow I’ll write up a short description of the current situation, so that people offering bandwidth know what they’re getting into, and what they can do to help. I’m hopeful we can come up with something without bankrupting anybody. Meantime, I’ve got almost 800 emails to go through, and well over 3000 forum posts… dunno how long it’s gonna take to get through all of it. Anyone waiting for a response… please be patient! (Sending another note, asking whether I’ve gotten to your mail, will NOT help the problem.) A great big shout-out to the rest of the crew around here, who did a bang-up job this week – they all rock.

Ah, Saturday. A perfect day to head out to the back forty, tall glass of lemonade in hand, to your favorite hammock. Relax, enjoy the cool breeze, prop up the ol’ laptop and settle in to some light summer Halo reading.

• A long hard day of killing humans, by FOrunnER
• Halo 2, not what you’d expect, Part One, by Hunter_Killer
• A Marine Named Peters: To Kill A Pegasus, by GLADIATRRR3000
• Halo Zero 2 /p8/ Medula’s War, by nicholas
• Return to Earth (Chptr 6: Boarding the Ship), by CoLd BlooDed
• Halo from the Flood’s Point of View: Enter the Norah, by Simpsons Rule
• The second genocide (Halo 2: Chapter 9), by Shadowrunner

Brian Towne was at GenCon yesterday, and he checked in here with a report on Halo PC and how it played under large, networked tournament conditions. Some interesting info in there, go give it a look. Mmmm, overheating fuel-rod guns… 🙂

Gruntsbane (formerly Covenant) dropped into our forum with news of a new site put together by Mr. Smiley, featuring Halo Babies comics done by Gruntsbane himself (Check the forum post for more details). There are only two up so far, but they’re definitely worth a look. I always figured Sarge was a baaad influence.

Only one entry today for wallpaper. What, everybody run out of ideas? 😉

A homemade plush Grunt, a rising Hero, and a classic conflict, all in today’s Misc Art update.

Anything you can do I can do brighter… One One Se7en is up. Pax.

Who would have thought that the twenty-six measly letters in our alphabet could be rearranged in so many unique, yet ultimately Halo-related ways? Not me, that’s for sure. Read on!

• Into the City, by The Scribe
• Unknown Apprentice Part 2, by apache119
• Halo 2: First Strike, by HunterKiller
• A Marine’s Tale: Boot, by pj-NYkr90
• Delta Squadron: Chapter Two; First Engagement, by Steele
• The Fall of Fate: Invasion, Part One, by ‘Nosolee
• Battle for the Norah: Part Four, by Sterfrye36
• New Lunar HQ, by Fleet Admiral
• First Contact; Chapter 2: Probe, by retsamolah
• Project: Shadow Spartan, Chapter 8, by Agent Shade
• A John Before Halo: Part 4 , by J-117
• First Contact; Chapter 3: First Blood, by retsamolah
• Running Riot- Part 3, by Simon James
• The Adventures of Lt. Jake, Part One, by Hunter_Killer
• Return to Earth (Chptr 5: Destined to Kill), by CoLd BlooDed
• Halo 2 Fight For Earth: The Next Day, by HunterKiller
• Oblivion Chapter 6: New York City: Covenant Playground, by Reclaimer

Brian Towne, the patron saint of Halo filmmakers everywhere and curator of Mythica, our primary movie host, has checked in from GenCon, where he is undoubtedly rubbing elbows with the likes of Bungie’s SketchFactor and playing an ungodly amount of PC Halo, with the sad news that Mythica’s colocation provider has notified him that they are going out of business. In short, most of our films are going to be unavailable for at least the near future, until Brian has a chance to get back from the ‘Con, unpack, and sort out the issues (detailed here). I don’t know if Louis will be able to pull some kind of hosting miracle out of his hat, but for now, just assume that movies are offline until further notice.

Oh, and if you can provide any reliable hosting, please let us know. 😉

MaverickJ writes to let us (and you) know that the Project Spartan site is not dead, nor have they given up on it, but that bandwidth issues have temporarily closed them down. Yeah, I know, you forgotten all of the flag tricks and your team is getting slaughtered. Sit tight and we’ll let you know when they get things ironed out.

A Misc Art entry that, if real, would be a definite hit, and two logos (here and here).

A few of our forum regulars were playing Halo the other day and shared a rather unique experience. Read it for yourself.

I bring you an exclusive. A snippet of a new video that RedvsBlue presented at the Lincoln Center Video Festival as part of their machinama program last night. They’re going to release it soon from their site, in it’s full glory, but my little Canon did a decent job of capturing it. I took a bunch of pics and wrote up about the whole thing… how cool is it to hang with Burnie and Jason? All you keep hearing are the voices of some of the funniest characters in the funniest series evuh!

So what are you waiting for, CHECK IT OUT NOW!

The Halo Story Page has been updated.

*thunk*

Two wallpapers for you today, both in a slightly familiar style.