Juesoni stopped in with a link to David, a new machinima series he’s starting. A bit strange, but it works. Apparently, the next one will be shown live, today. In fact, it’s set to go down in about 2 hours. Read the post for more details.(Louis Wu 17:43:04 UTC)

Darknesshasfallen was inspired by the fanart in last night’s Weekly Update… and whipped up his own offering. I was amused.(Louis Wu 17:40:06 UTC)

Ross Mills ran across some Halo artwork for sale on Amazon (UK-only) – he found a Halo 3 piece, and a Halo Wars piece. There doesn’t seem to be any search that narrows down ONLY to Halo pieces – but this search will show you 33 images, 15 of which are Halo-related. It’s unclear whether these are authorized by MS or not.(Louis Wu 17:38:08 UTC)

A number of comics were announced on our forum in the past 12 hours or so:

• Juesoni told us about Reconnaissance Omega Special Chapter, now on its 9th page (out of 10)
• The Catfish announced that 2501 Episode 6 was out – with a cliffhanger
• Adam Susskind is back, with word of Chaos Theory Episode 8: Fear (Part 2), coming this Tuesday (we mentione Part 1 back on last Tuesday)
• anthraxgoon wanted folks to know that X36 Chapter One Episode 14 is now online – with new math, and new death

The number of strips continues to increase!(Louis Wu 17:31:03 UTC)

I’m not really sure what happened, but it looks like someone broke in and used urk’s computer to write up a fake Bungie Weekly Update. That’s the only explanation I can come up with for an update so chock-full of actual information, straight talk and undisguised answers. Highlights:

• A Mythic-specific playlist will go live the day of Halo Wars’ release
• Elites will NOT appear in Halo 3: ODST
• A chunk of the backstory has been posted to justify this decision
• fan artwork and fan whining are both spotlighted
• Luke’s drawing from last week is confirmed NOT to be Sandtrap
• Juicy details from the week’s progress on Halo 3: ODST are provided

Since whoever actually DID post this in urk’s name will likely soon be killed by Bungie ninjas, we’ve placed a copy in our Weekly Update Archive for safekeeping. Read it quickly, in case they get us, too!(Louis Wu 01:02:02 UTC)

subtheorist, from MLGPro.com, wrote to let us know about a giveaway for Halo Wars Beta codes – with one of these, you’ll be able to download the demo about a week before the general public. They’ve got 25 codes to give away, and all you need to do is post in a particular thread. Read their contest page for full details!(Louis Wu 21:36:09 UTC)

The Bungie Blog highlighted a montage dominated by MLG play – it’s in HD, but bring the dramamine, the camera cuts are really jumpy.(Louis Wu 20:31:36 UTC)

HDR has some new screens from Halo Wars, snapped from the demo, due out in less than two weeks.(Louis Wu 19:21:15 UTC)

According to VoodooExtreme, Halo Wars went gold today – and the studio doors will close soon. Swing by for the full MS press release.(Louis Wu 17:47:43 UTC)

urk got word that The Running Riot podcast is moving to a live recording format, with the next episode (14) being broadcast at 9:30 pm EST on January 27th. Predator5791 will be a guest. Check out their website for full details.(Louis Wu 17:31:56 UTC)