CobaltNova has announced the winners of the first Rockets On Prisoner Halo fan film awards. They also want everyone to know that Brian "SketchFactor" Jarrard at Bungie is, as we speak, working on creating the Bungie Prize Pack that winners will receive.

gfunk has posted an item over on the Red vs Blue site; it seems that readers Matthew and David sent over some images that purport to show Red vs. Blue has made it to Iraq. (Who knew anyone even played Halo in Iraq... outside the barracks, I mean?) They've also got pics of the series being shown in Game Time Nation in New York City, and ask other RvB fans to send them any other interesting images they might have.

SketchFactor over at Bungie.net has posted the results of the "Ask the Cananimators" feature interview, with answers by anim8rjb and bentlama. While the majority of the answers were with tongue placed firmly in cheek, and related to the genesis of Canadian Bacon, the relative coolness factor of the OHL and the CFL, and the prospects for the Toronto Maple Leafs, some Halo info did creep in there from time to time:

NW: We actually use IK for most of our animation. IK on the arms and legs, feet and other areas. For the most part we are really used to animating with IK. We use FK for the spine, neck, head and wrists and toes. Our animation rig is a mix of a lot of things, and through the power of MEL, it is simple to use and quick to animate with...those are the most important features of any animation rig. Thanks for asking, and please keep posting more questions like this.

Be sure to give it a read. Thanks to Louis Wu at HBO as usual.

Gabe over at Penny Arcade has posted that this month's Gaming Day event, to be held at Lanwerx in Bellevue, WA on August 23, is going to feature a Halo tournament as well as some Halo 2 stuff:

To go along with our Halo tourney, Microsoft will has agreed to come down and show off a bit of Halo 2. We aren't sure yet if it will be the same stuff they showed at E3 or something new but either way it's pretty fucking exciting.

Penny Arcade, of course, is a regular webcomic focusing on gaming that has, at times, mentioned Halo in the past.

DarkHelmet from BattleGround: Halo has been invited to a Halo: PC Fanstock event at the Gearbox headquarters. They promise a big article on it afterwards, so stay tuned.

UPDATE: According to the latest news post at Forerunners.org, Steve is also headed to this event, and no doubt they'll have updates after that as well.