XerxdeeJ has announced in the HBO forum that he's started a Halo blog called Tied The Leader.

Just a short while ago, Apple released version 10.4 of OS X, codenamed Tiger. One of the new features it introduced was Dashboard, a controversially Konfabulator-like feature.

Lacsap has created a Dashboard widget that displays your Halo 2 ranking. He announced it in an HBO forum post; you can download it from Dashboardwidgets.com.

The latest edition of The Hookup, an audio-video and gaming column at Penny Arcade, talks about the impact of High Definition on gaming in general and Xbox Live in particular. Halo, of course, gets mentioned:

Prometheus posted a summary of the HBO Lekgolos Humpday Challenge against Bungie in the HBO forum. The clan took the first game impressively, winning 5-0 in "monosnipe" neutral flag on Coagulation. But Bungie regrouped to take the next two games and the victory. Thanks to Blackstar for the tip.

According to BDGamer, Microsoft has announced that it has selected Limelight Networks as the Content Delivery Network for Xbox Live. Limelight currently powers Steam and is slated to perform the same duties for the Phantom gaming console, should it ever see the light of day.

Stosh over at Bungie.net passes on word that one of the latest nightly builds of Aleph One, the open source engine for playing Bungie's Marathon trilogy, has gained several new features more common among modern networked shooters: in this case, chat and server browser features.

In other Marathon-related news:

Felonious Monks over at Geezer Gamers posted the script for a new custom game type called 7-Eleven in their forum; three-team cops-and-robbers affairs that pits thieves, police, and convenience store staff against each other. Thanks to Louis Wu at HBO for the heads-up.

According to Major Nelson, the new Halo 2 maps are now available for download, as his schedule lists 7 AM EST and it is now shortly after that. I've had no chance to download them yet myself, but I'll post as soon as I do. As mentioned many times before, Warlock and Containment are free, while Sanctuary and Turf together are $5.99 and are not available separately from each other.

Both Major Nelson in his blog and Frankie in the HBO forum have confirmed that despite what you may have heard, the reset of game statistics for Halo 2 will not affect your friends list. Many of you may have been receiving-- or even sending-- voice and text messages to your friends with instructions not to delete them, in order to preserve your lists post-reset. It isn't necessary.

Brian "SketchFactor" Jarrard talked to 1UP.com about the changes in the 1.1 Halo 2 Update, touching on one particular weapon tweak (or rather the lack thereof) that was close to the hearts of the author:

The update itself doesn't seem to be quite large at all, and as of this writing, it has become available even at my undisclosed location. After successfully downloading the update, you'll see the number "1.1" in the lower right-hand corner of Halo 2's main menu screen. This disappears once you login to Live and reappears when you logout.

The Art of Controller Tossing, the latest Making of a Spartan article by Furiont at Tabula Rasa, touches on the value of knowing when to hold 'em, when to fold 'em, when to walk away, and when to run, vis a vis lowering the number of times you die in a Halo 2 match.

SketchFactor has posted the summary of the latest Humpday Challenge-- after a short hiatus following their humiliation against typical Japanese Halo players, Bungie rewrote the rules (they now pick one of the gametypes and actually practice as a team beforehand) and rebounded with a solid victory over Art Vand3lay, flechette, goatrope, Ducain, Sorahn, and Jphan7om of