Tarrsk’s HBO XBL Gamertag list was updated recently – but he’s in a place where he has no access to the website. To help out, we’re hosting it here at HBO. Find friends now! (For those who don’t know, this is a list of HBO forum regulars, correlating their Xbox Live gamertags to their HBO Forum profiles.)

dolbex writes to say that the new, improved Halo50k.com website is up and running. Check it out!

In the December issue of OXM UK, the top 10 plays included a few Halo pieces (as usual). Most were rehashes of standard stuff… but one was something that I haven’t really seen filmed before. (This might be because it is so mind-numbingly boring to actually film that nobody wanted to bother… or it might be because it’s pretty boring to actually WATCH. Either way, this was the first clip I’d seen like this.) 2 minutes of killing your coop partner, over and over and over again (lots of parts were skipped to keep it from being TOO boring), so that you could drop all the bodies at once. 10 megs to download from Mythica. (You can actually see the end result in a Frogblast movie from many months ago – but in a different context.) Thanks muchly to Griffon, who ripped this for us and sent it along.

7 months ago, David Karl created a Warthog out of legos. He’s at it again… check this out. David sez:

the ‘hog has almost been completely digitized, and instructions should be done within a couple weeks. in the mean time, you can try and scrounge up this piece, cuz you’ll need four of em. the only set I know of that has these is number 6933, that blacktron six-wheeled thing. either go find one or get ready to improvize with the smallest shocks you can find.

David also points out that the Moden HL server has moved to 68.115.32.145. Looking forward to seeing the final product!

Nadorst points out that there’s a Halo remix on the Dutch Xbox site Xboxworld.nl that we’ve never mentioned before. It’s pretty powerful – and rather nicely done. I don’t read Dutch, and there doesn’t seem to be any way to contact the creator of the piece… but you can download it from Xboxworld.nl either at the above link, or directly from the download page. It’s 3.9 mb, in zipped mp3 format. Check it out!

3 bits of Fan Fiction for you today…

• No Dice, by Dirty Commie
• 5 Way War Part I, by Demosthenes
• A New Year’s Day, Chapter 6, by Guilty Spark

Gonna be out for most of the rest of the day. Please don’t get antsy if you submitted something. Thanks!

The Master Chief is… where? Check the Miscellaneous Art section.

Signs for our times? (Spoilers – lots of ’em.)

Randy Pitchford, president of Gearbox, spoke recently at CPL’s Winter Event about Halo for PC. (We mentioned this several days ago, referencing the Gamespot article about it.) There was also a summary at The Adrenaline Vault – and Halo Orbit, the German fansite, has translated this into german. Go take a gander if the english version is giving you trouble!

The latest issue of the Guiness Book of World Records has given the title of ‘Most Advanced Game Console’ to the Xbox – and the picture they’ve chosen to use to illustrate the point is the Master Chief. Not too shabby! (This was posted at Bungie.net – but we received email about 4 hours earlier from md10md.)

Just a couple of Fan Fiction pieces for you this morning:

• Mendozas Diary: Unexpected Fatality, by el_halo_diablo
• The Encounter, part 2, by Harley

As much as we’d like to, we cannot accept fiction (or artwork, for that matter) with no Halo influences; we are, after all, a fansite devoted to a particular video game, and not a general host for anything you put together. Thanks!

Pair of desktops for you today – Threshold/Earth, and Absolut Halo, rehashed. Check ’em both out in our Wallpaper section.

An AIM icon, a hide-n-seek game, some booze, a Christmas wish, and a new enemy… what more could you want from Halo? All these images can be found in our Miscellaneous Art section.

Desktop submissions are all composites of bungie.net artwork – and the similarity between the last two is entirely coincidental. (As far as I can tell, these two guys have never met each other.) Check ’em out in our Wallpaper section.

Atom put together an audio tribute to Halo – the link lets you grab it off his server. If enough of you mail us and tell us that the Halo influence is obvious, I’ll add this to the Fan Music section of the Miscellaneous page… but for now, just get it from the source.

Fan Fiction submitted since Tuesday:

• The New Years Resolution on Halo and The Rescue, by Scott J.
• The Great Elite, by Cory
• Omega Red Chapter 3, by Kane172
• Ring Of The Forerunners Part I, by Locke
• HALO: A New War of Old Enemies, chapter 2, by Jeff Graham
• Halo: And its unsung heroes, by Pforboy124
• Shadows of Archon II, part 33, by Wado
• Halo Side Story, part 6, by Jordan Dotson

Artwork coming in a little bit…

Well, Christmas is nearly over… but it’s still so beautiful here (it’s been snowing since 5 am) that there’s no way I can clear out the backlog tonight. I’m headed back to the fire, to sip eggnog and enjoy family conversation… fanfiction and artwork will get put up in the morning. Peace to all!

HBO Headquarters, snapped outside the server center at roughly 8:40 pm local time (1:40 am UTC) – it’s showing no sign of stopping…

M E R R Y   C H R I S T M A S !

From the HBO crew and our families, to you and yours, we wish you the merriest of holiday seasons. Pax.

We’ll be back updating on Thursday, the 26th.

Poll update: The BBC Game of the Year poll has had another 1600 votes cast since yesterday, when we first mentioned it… and roughly half of those were cast for Halo. Dunno if that was you folks, or other people… but Halo’s catching up to GTA: Vice City (which suggests that the theory that a GTA fanboi might have been cheating early on is a sound one). If you haven’t voted, stop by!

Christmas Eve Day Fan Fiction:

• Taking Tritus Last Part, by Dispraiser
• Wings of Death Part 18, by el_halo_diablo
• Wandering Beasts, by Jahan

Go read ’em…