As of today I've been reinstalled in Rampancy's core after a short business trip to London and environs last week, the culmination (or at least the high point) of which was some Halo 2 play on XBL with Stuntmutt and c0ld vengeance. In the meantime, here are the most important items in the Halo/Xbox 360verse in that time:

• Frankie, on his way to Zero Hour, confirmed that from the interface to Xbox Live and System Link games, Halo 2 is the same when played on an Xbox and the Xbox 360. Also, the little-used Head to Head playlist is being discontinued, and Major and Minor Clanmatch are being removed as separate playlists, to be replaced by a simple Clanmatch playlist with a player limit of 5 per side.
• TeamXbox says that Halo 2 looks a lot better on the Xbox 360, even when output through an S-video signal at 480p; however, Sandstone makes some educated guesses about how the upscaling from 480p to 720p is being achieved on backwards-compatible games like Halo 2, and strongly suggests that using the 720p signal might be a bad idea. Thanks to HBO for pointing out both articles.
• Seasoned Gamers beat Bungie in the latest Humpday Challenge. Bungie takes on Mexico next, because that's the American way.