Stories from the last day or so, just clearing out the Fan Fiction queue:

• The Long Ride Home, part 11, by Joshua Barreto
• Taker of Life, Giver of Death, part 11, by Ian Barnes
• Human, by Mr Bill Jr V
• Halo: The Final Fight, part 2, by Daniel Luiken
• Have Design, Will Build, part 3, by hipboyscott
• An Elites Legend, part 2, by Neco Divad
• Eve, part 1, by RazorCow

Get to it!

A couple of pieces of Miscellaneous Art submitted over the last couple of days; apologies, it’s been busy. You’ll find the original version of strykerwolf’s Halloween (modified version visible on yesterday’s news page), and a clan logo from some Halo fanatics in Finland. Enjoy!

Tarrsk is compiling a database of HBO forumgoers who play on Xbox Live; it’s unclear at the moment where it will be hosted, but if you want to be included, simply reply to the forum thread, or email Tarrsk with your HBO forum screen name and your XBL gamer tag. (If you include only one or the other, or submit your entry more than once, you’ll likely be ignored.) Update: there is a page live for this – you’ll find it here.

Forum regular Warbow sent his son out for trick-or-treating last night as a Master Chief. You can see his post (and the resultant thread) on the forum, and we’ve added a local copy of the pictures. Now that’s fatherly dedication!

Thank goodness SOMEONE saved a copy of this; we were out trick-or-treating, I would have missed it. (Thanks to Candyman for the creation, and mnemesis for its posterity assuredness.) Bed…

Bungie’s hiring again… this time, they’re looking for a Community Development Manager. Responsibilities, requirements, and general info can be found on Bungie.net… oh, how I wish I lived near Seattle sometimes.

A European mirror for the Halo Winter Season promo mentioned yesterday has come online – thanks again to GJ of Fantazm!

Halo in your local pub? Narcogen, of Rampancy.net, found an interesting article describing a new marketing deal between Microsoft and Anheuser-Busch which will get Xboxes into bars. Promotional schwag, including Xboxes, will be given away during the initial phase. Nice!

In the midst of the forum madness of the last couple of days, Lorraine Reyes-McLees dropped by with an update on Eagan (misspelled the last time we mentioned him) – sounds like everyone’s doing well! (We want sketches, Lorraine!)

Strykerwolf created a pretty cool image for Halo-ween… we’ve shamelessly stolen it for use here on this page. (You can see the original on our forum.) Strykerwolf – if this thievery is not acceptable, we’ll yank it… but it was just too cool not to use.

Lots of Fan Fiction today…

• Unexpected Surprises, part 3, by JediKnight114
• Fafnir, part 7, by KnightmareWolf
• Shadows of Archon II, part 25, by Wado
• The Shadows, part 10, by Glenny
• Cooking Covies with Neco Divad, by Neco Divad
• The Time Vortex: Intro, by Arthur Wellesly
• Revolution 2 Return of the Forerunner, part 3, by Gruntkiller

See what you can read (and comment on) before the next wave.

Whoa. Can’t remember the last time we did this, but hey, exigent circumstances, and all… Travis Cossel, quickly making a name for himself in the Halo Video scene, has put together a promo film for the iGames Halo Winter Season – you can grab a copy (6.3 mb, 1:22 long, QT 5 format) over at our Mythica mirror space, or from the Psyjnir.com hotline server, or from HBO’s mac.com overflow space. (This, too, we’d be happy to offer mirrors for… if you’ve got the space, let us know.)

On October 25th, jackass the movie opened in theaters. Within three days, we’d received two submissions parodying this film. Our limited bandwidth resources required that we choose one… Kevin Kranzky has created a 6:45, 32.5 mb film that looks at stupid Halo stunts. Some of it’s hilarious, some of it is kind of silly… but then, I’d guess that can be said about the MTv film, as well, right? It’s currently being hosted by Mythica.org and the Psynjir.com hotline server, but it’s a big’un, so if you’ve got space, and would like to help out, let us know! Update: CYBRFRK has put a copy up at Cybrfrk’n. Thanks! Update 2: GJ has supplied another mirror, courtesy of Fantazm. Woohoo! (This one’s in Europe.) Full mirror list coming at some point.

iGames has posted the tournament rules for the Halo Winter Season; if you’re interested in competing in this national event (the first qualifiers are this weekend), check out this page! Thanks to Team Overkill for the heads-up.

Tuesday’s Fan Fiction:

• Liberation, part 8, by Hoju
• Indoctrination, by Havok

Have at ’em…

SilverBrin****, of The Psyjnir Complex, has created another piece of Halo fan music. In SB’s words:

Think Halo meets Oni… If the Master Chief and Konoko were out clubbing, you might hear this….then again mb not not :(.

It’s interesting. I have trouble hearing the Halo influences in places… but you should check it out for yourself! Just under 3 megs, in MP3 format. And yes, this means I’m gonna get off my butt and set up a Fan Music section to this site… Soonâ„¢.

Game Nation has interviewed Xbox Canada’s marketing manager, Ryan Mugford. There are some interesting numbers in there; Canada has the highest percentage of Xbox gamers in the world (30.1% of their home console market), the highest percentage of Halo purchasers, and a ridiculously high percentage of people with access to broadband (80% of Xbox owners have it). Now, except for the silliness about Halo coming to the Gameboy Advance (I must say, a large chunk of Mugford’s credibility went out the window when I read that portion of the interview), there’s some good info in there; don’t mind the uncertainty in the Halo 2 release dates, pay attention to the Xbox Live info (and the Canadian stats in general). Thanks to Harry Al-Shakarchi for the heads-up.

Hojjen drops off a big, bright desktop for our Wallpaper section. Take a look…

Bizarre pair of Miscellaneous Art submissions tonight. (For what it’s worth, the creator of the first one has nothing to do with me, and I probably wouldn’t have posted the second one if I hadn’t been so amused by goings-on on the forum this evening.)

Better late than never… today’s Fan Fiction offerings:

• He’s Baaaaaack! Chapter 1, by Killer_Fairy
• Outlaw, Chapter 4, by Chris Cassani
• The Hephaestus Equation I, by Dirty Commie

Apparently, the comments abuse is getting worse. A forum thread has been started to get votes from people interested (one way or the other) in the continued existence of the Comments section – be sure to chime in soon.