Matt stopped by and left a message saying that Bungie is considering a launch party for HALO. Chime your opinion on the bungie.net poll. The choice of cities currently is limited to New York and Chicago, but there is an option to let Bungie know that those locations wouldn't work for you. So if you are interested in this sort of thing, voice your opinion.

Thanks to Steve Johnson for sending the scans from the Official XBox Magazine promotional issue. Apparently these have been online for a little while, but here they are in case you missed them the first time around.

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I found a free mini-magazine at the local Electronics Boutique of the upcoming Official XBox Magazine. There's lots of cool information about the system, as well as a nice preview of HALO with some stuff that at least I have never seen before. Here are some highlights:

Yesterday I met a cat named Brian who said he's among the growing number of people who enjoy the jokes at the beginning of each Halo Update. I'mglad they're not a total waste of space, although for my money you can't get much better than A giraffe walks into a bar and says 'The highballs are on me' and I've never been nearly that funny. But humor is a verysubjective thing. A few days ago I was in a bar on the Sunset Strip, watching a man in a bathrobe conduct an imaginary orchestra on the sidewalk.

Fuolornis found an image of the HALO box art over at IGN. The picture shows the marine up close with an unrealistic amount of action going on behind him... check it out!

Kudos to mnemesis for spotting this week's update: