Now with more rules!

So, if you haven't heard, we're running a little Halo: Reach emblem contest right now.  If you want details, you can check them out in last week's update.  But really, this small news bite is for folks who are already planning on submitting.  Candland's been powering through the entries and has a few things he'd like to clear up before you hit the send button.  Bam:

"Please don’t send .zip, .rar, or other compressed archives. It can become a security concern opening these files and it creates an extra step for me. If you sent me a compressed file. I threw it away and didn’t look at it. A 256x256 .gif or .jpg should not require any compression to mail anyway.

Secondly, please send me the files directly, don’t send me hyperlinks. Again, there are security issues for unverified links. And again, it creates an extra step for me. If you sent your submission in the form of a link, I didn’t bother clicking it. Send your submission again with the images attached.

Lastly, there are apparently several people that completely misunderstood the contest and sent me their favorite Halo 3 emblem combination. While I am partial to my own, because it looks kind of like a Recon version of Stuntmutt’s One One Seven comic character. I applaud your pride in your personal combination, but alas, it does me this much good: none."

If you've already submitted, don't freak out.  We'll still process yours as is.  This is just for those who are still deep into the creative process.

Rally up for Haiti relief!

Spread the word, Seventh Column.  We're almost ready to kick off our "Be a Hero" Halo 3 and Halo 3: ODST online charity drive and we need you to recruit anyone and everyone you can.  If you're looking for the full instructions, I'll include them below, but the short form is simple: Change your player emblem to a red heart, play Halo 3 or Halo 3: ODST online on Wednesday and Thursday, and make sure you leave your emblem in place until you get word that the charity event is over.

Here are the details.

1. Round up all of your friends and hop online with Halo 3 or ODST any time next from 00:01AM PST Wednesday, 1/20, through 23:59PM PST Thursday 1/21.

2. Edit your appearance settings so your character is wearing the RED HEART emblem.

a. Press START
b. Select “SETTINGS” / “APPEARANCE”
c. Select “EMBLEM”
d. Select “Hearts” ICON, “Circle” BACKGROUND
e. Back out to the APPEARANCES menu and select “COLORS”
f. Set “EMBLEM PRIMARY” to RED (or MAROON / BRICK / ROSE depending on which game you’re playing!)
g. Set “EMBLEM SECONDARY” to WHITE

3. Once your emblem is set, play! This can be a custom game or a matchmaking game, just make sure it’s played online, on Xbox LIVE, or we can’t track it.

If you keep playing more games through midnight on Thursday, KEEP THE HEART EMBLEM ENABLED or you may not get counted.

The full story can be viewed here.

Bloated, but operational.

After a little network blip this morning, all Bungie systems are back online and fully operational.  We missed you.  Kinda like one might miss a wart after daubing it with acid for a couple of weeks straight.  (Sometimes, they pop right back out.)

To celebrate our triumphant return to online form, check out this video of some Spartans with strangely elongatred asses dancing in a public parade.  HBO found it.  They're into this fetishist kinda stuff.

Dancing Spartan Parade

Upgrades.

The Wolf is on the prowl and that means B.net is getting an upgrade.  It also means you might experience a brief outage if you happen to be online in the wee hours of Wednesday morning.  To keep you up to speed as he ups the speed up Bungie.net, The Wolf prepped you a personal message:

"If you’re like us and tried to swallow a whole turkey in one gulp last Thursday, you probably thought, 'I wish a had a wider pipe between my mouth and my stomach!' Well, we can’t help you there, but we *can* put a wider tube between our servers and your Xboxes. That’s happening tonight at around 2AM PST, give or take. While that work is in progress, Bungie.net will be in read-only mode, and file-sharing will be unavailable in Halo 3 and ODST. If you were planning to spend the 2AM hour posting to the Bungie.net forums, we recommend alternate activities like, well, learning to chew before swallowing. Don’t you have basic table manners?"

Bubble up, it's time to go shopping.

You know our motto.  We deliver.  Four new items just touched down into the Bungie Store.  Get 'em while the LZ is clear.

B.U.N.G.L.E. Pro T-Shirt

"Drop whatever you're dual wielding and get set to deploy this t-shirt into your stylish wardrobe. You're a Pro. Bubble up, it's time to shine."



blam! T-shirt

"The blam! t-shirt is so blam! awesome that we can't even write a proper blam! description for the blam! thing. Now add the blam! thing to your blam! cart and give us your blam! money."



Property of Bungie.net T-shirt

"Pull this pimpin' tee down around your bulbous noggin' and tell everybody that you're owned and operated by Bungie.net. Then go make us a sandwich."



Marathon Hoodie

"You're probably not going to be able to save enough Bobs for Leela's liking, but picking up this sweet Marathon Hoodie might go a long way toward making things right. Nuke and pave, kill your television, and eat the path - but try and keep this hoodie out of your mouth."