Over at LoadingReadyRun, there are a few rejected ideas for stories on this week’s episode of the Escapist News Network – ‘Halotar’ is pretty funny. Thanks, Rosco-128.(Louis Wu 19:54:35 UTC)

Halochief89 has been working on his ‘Clairvoyance’ illustrated story over at DeviantART – we mentioned Chapter 1 a few days ago, but the artwork for it wasn’t up yet. (It is now.) He’s also finished Chapter 2 – and the Chapter 2 artwork (I like this one a lot). Check out his latest post for details on what’s coming next.(Louis Wu 19:53:59 UTC)

If you’re over at Halo Waypoint to check out Midnight in the Heart of Midlothian, Part 2 (don’t miss it), there’s a new feature, as well: Vintage Fisticuffs, a series of videos that will look back at some of the epic battles in Halo’s campaigns. First up: The Grand Canyon, the battle on Two Betrayals leading up to the destruction of the second pulse generator. What a great idea, Waypoint! It’s all nicely narrated (and played, one would assume) by fan-turned-Waypoint employee Vociferous. Check it out! Thanks, Morpheus.(Louis Wu 19:52:37 UTC)

Decadence Night has created his 200th panorama – given the nice round number, he decided to lean towards ‘ridonkulous epicosity’ in its creation. Check out ‘Timelapse: War Torn’ (be sure to click through for the full-size, 5215×2302 pixel monster). As Marty might say… “lots of people die.”(Louis Wu 19:51:47 UTC)

terminator182 is back with a new edition of his HBO News Widget – that little plugin that shows you HBO news stories from the OSX Dashboard. This one is Reach-themed, and much prettier than the old one. Take a look!(Louis Wu 19:50:02 UTC)

The Bungie Weekly Update went live about an hour ago – some tantalizing details about Reach’s development, a followup on the Help for Haiti campaign (nice job, community!), an announcement of a way for you to get your own artwork into Reach, some obviously pressured kind words for the older contingent of the development team, and a picture that would horrify me… if I could stop laughing long enough to be horrified. Check it out! (It’s in our Weekly Update Archive, as well, of course.)(Louis Wu 01:40:28 UTC)

A reminder: the second of the four parts of ‘Midnight in the Heart of Midlothian’, the Frank O’Connor-penned, ONE-animated tale of heroism and intrigue, will go live on Halo Waypoint tomorrow. Click the banner below for a sneak peek at a teaser shot.(Louis Wu 19:34:05 UTC)

Hankerin’ for some rocket-racin’? You’re in luck – this week’s Double XP Weekend playlist on XBox LIVE is Rocket Race. Full details are up at Bungie.net.(Louis Wu 19:13:11 UTC)

Swing by Bungie.net for a truly delicious-looking Master Chief cake – that’s a lotta squirts from the frosting bag!(Louis Wu 19:09:33 UTC)

Couple of new moviews you can find in the Bungie.net Comm Chatter today:

• Funny Halo 3 Fail and Laughs 10 has 4 minutes of funny fails. (Maybe not funny for some of the participants…)
• Revelation is a montage from L for Letterz – 10 minutes of snipe/BR action.

Go watch.(Louis Wu 18:30:09 UTC)

As promised, we’ve uploaded the rarely-heard ‘All Clear’ speech Sgt. Johnson gives if you get to him quickly enough (and with enough survivors) on AotCR, as recorded by Rockslider a couple of days ago. This is a more complete version of the speech submitted by Captain Spark two and a half years ago.(Louis Wu 18:02:57 UTC)

TTL Demag0gue announced that Reclaimer 238 is live – it’s still fun to mess with the Reclaimer, I guess. Poor guy!(Louis Wu 18:02:35 UTC)

Game Informer continues ITS Reach coverage with an interview with Marty O’Donnell talking about Reach’s score. (Well, the trailer’s score, anyway.) Fun tidbit! Go watch. Thanks, 2900d4u. (Louis Wu 17:39:16 UTC)