For all those who’ve submitted artwork, fiction, movies, in the last few days – apologies for the delay in posting. It’s a holiday weekend, and we have relatives in town. I was hoping to get to much of it Sunday afternoon… didn’t happen. Monday, as well, looks booked up. I might get some time, but I might not. If family delays me, I’d really appreciate your patience; I’ll get it all posted just as soon as I can. Thanks!

It took a few days, but a mechanism has been set up whereby Bungie community members who would like to contribute to the Brian Morden Recovery Fund can do so. Check this page for details.

Now this is a pretty cool glitch. In answer to the old chestnut “If a tree falls in a forest, and nobody’s around to hear it, does it make a sound?”, SaFruk discovered that on at least one multiplayer map, the answer is ‘No.’ Toss a couple of plasma grenades on a dead body on the map Chiron, leave the room before they explode… and they’ll REMAIN unexploded until someone enters the room. This doesn’t seem to work on open levels… but Chiron is a series of unconnected rooms. SaFruk suggests using the glitch to set up proximity mines for your enemies… see what else you can come up with!

Whoa – can’t wait to see a bigger version. Dulaman87 noticed that the Ballantine entry for Halo: The Flood (the next Halo novel) now has all-new cover art. Is that the Master Chief with his helmet off? Update: Thanks to the more than half-dozen people who sent links to this picture (made local here in case it changes again), making it clear that the MC’s face is NOT visible. My bad.

A Covenant anatomy project? Looks that way. Check out the details here, and get on the stick helping Shishka out.

Most movies we post are either fun gameplay vids, or trick exploits… this one’s different. ArakniZ took the time to build, step by step, a tutorial for Warthog Jumping. If you already know how to do this, don’t bother downloading the movie. This one’s for the folks who periodically pop up on our forum, asking “how do I make a warthog go so high?” (It’s also for lurkers who want to know the answer to this question, but have never asked it out loud.) It covers such niceties as saving regularly after you get what you need, how to make sure the grenades fall in a tight formation, and other nuggets. It’s quite large (21 mb), in QuickTime format, and rather dull if you know this stuff – but if you don’t, it will really make the process easier. Grab a copy from Mythica.org. (We have other movies in the queue – we’ve been waiting for bandwidth demands to drop. Apparently, there’s been some international linkage recently.)

Whoa – I’m slow sometimes. Bungie’s Letters to the Webmaster have been updated. He’s in top form. Or something. It’s even Halo-related. Go. (Thanks, Miguel.)

New to our forum? Shishka just wrote up a guide which should help newcomers fit in to the existing community. It’s not a set of rules… just a series of suggestions. Definitely worth a read.

Lots of Fan Fiction in the past 24 hours:

• Rebirth – Shadow’s Prologue, part 3, by Shadow/Archangel’s Blade/KnightmareWolf/Spartan415
• Covenant Theater, part 2, by Alex Ross
• Force 81, part 5, by NobleWard
• Stormbringers, part 5, by WildebeestNZ
• A New Year’s Day, part 9, by Guilty Spark
• Ring Of The Forerunners, part 3, by Locke
• Under the sergeant’s cap, part 3, by Traumatised Marine

Go get ’em…

Followup on Brian Morden and a donation fund… Brian’s dad is in the process of setting up an account at their local credit union. As soon as we have an address, we’ll post it. (There will also be an email address you can use to send Paypal donations.) Nobody’s going to hound you to donate; this is being set up because several people have contacted me about ways to help out the family. When we know more about his condition, we’ll let you know.

Over the years, HBO has grown to house a pretty big collection of fan-created artwork (images, stories, movies, you name it). We’ve reached a point at which we can no longer accept pieces with no regard for quality. This is unfortunate, and we hate turning people away… but we need to draw a line. Our new guidelines are posted here. They’re also linked on many of the gallery pages. Please remember – we’re not saying don’t create it… we’re just saying we can’t host it.

Almost forgot… there was another submission on our forum yesterday for the Halo 2 Cover Art collection – we’ve added lloyd’s entry to the database.

The screenshots that were posted along with Bungie’s recent addition to their Legendary Walkthrough (Keyes) have been added to our Screenshots database. This is especially timely, since bungie.net seems to be down this morning.

Clearing out the Fan Fiction:

• Stolen UNSC Technical Documents, by Neile Pederson
• A Fresh Start, part 3, by Simon James
• When Worlds Collide 2.5, Halo Songs, and Elite Interview, by Gasmask
• Force 81 Part IV, by NobleWard

There are still some artwork pieces undealt with… but most of them don’t make the cut under the new guidelines. 🙁 Guess I have to get the rules up pretty soon…

Early adopters of Apple’s new Safari browser have discovered that they can’t view spoiler-laden posts on this site, because Safari won’t save the cookie that allows access. Steve Rice, a kind reader, has sent in a fix. Check it out.

In early December, emildux posted some information about an effort to pick the top 50 chapters in the US (one per state). Today, he points out that this list has been overhauled… he’s keeping up on activity (the HBO Junkies lost our spot in Connecticut because we haven’t been doing anything), so if you’re looking for active chapters in your state, this is a great place to start. Check it out!

Yesterday, we mentioned that *Ar-Isildur, a stalwart member of the community, was in a bad way and could use your get-well wishes. Ciarán discovered a link to the Hospital’s web site, where you can send a get-well email to a patient. Ar’s full name is Brian Morden, and he’s in Room 8. (You might want to include ‘North’, as well.)

Whoa – blast from the past. Relevant to now, even.

About a month ago, Hedgemony, a forum regular (absent now for a few weeks), was in the middle of a project to catalog all the dialog in Halo. He wished out loud that he could ask Marty O’Donnell all sorts of questions about the sound in Halo… well, Marty’s a pretty good guy. Hedge wrote up the questions, Marty answered ’em. It wasn’t overnight, but then, it was the holiday season… In any case, the interview is now available for the public. I’ve been unable to reach Hedge to let him know about it, but I have no doubt he’ll be back online at some point to check it out for himself. If you have any interest in some of the background issues in the Halo aural scene, read this interview! (It’s far more of a ‘how does this work?’ interview than a background ‘who are you, and why do you work for Bungie?’ interview.)

Hmm… got mail from The Elite Spartan, he’s interested in setting up a Halo tournament in or around Fayetteville, AR. He needs to know how much interest there’d be for a summer tournament, though… if you’re interested, drop him a line.