If a Grunt wore Hunter Armor...

I drew a picture to see what it would look like if a Grunt wore Hunter uniform, looks like a force to be reckoned with!




Original piece by SDtektiv, drawn in 2005 originally to hang up on the wall during a Halo 2 Xbox LAN partay.

Dear My Xbox, you better recognize!

Today was a good day in Halo 2 online gaming. It only took three tries for the Xbox to recognize the Halo 2 disc. This is a blessing, and it will be easy to understand why I appreciate it so much when I tell you that one day last week it took a grand total of 19 tries for it to work! Maybe the cleaning disc thing I used had something to do with the not-recognizing.

In any case, I'm glad that it worked, because sometimes it can get a little annoying saying "You better recognize!" many times to the Xbox. It's nice when the Xbox gets a clue that it really better recognize. At my last Halo 2 LAN Partay, we used a different Halo 2 disc on my Xbox and it loaded up just fine, so something that I was considering was getting a new Halo 2 disc, though my position on this changes on a day-to-day basis based on how many tries it took to recognize and load up the disk.

It's an awesome treat to hear the musical guitar-aided white screen with the multiplying blue cells zoom out Bungie logo *cymbal!* thing, but a lot of the time I just see a bunch of green lines criss-crossed across the screen. Either way, this is not nearly half the battle, as it will then take me to a dark blue screen with white letters saying "loading" with a number somewhere between 15-40%. I used to be anxious whenever I saw this, but now I either pray or change the channel and have the Xbox Halo 2 loading thing in "Picture-In-Picture" in the corner of the screen. It will try and fail three times to load up to 100%, and then it will say "there is a problem with your disc, blah blah blah press 'A' to go to the 'Xbox cannot recognize...' screen on your dashboard."

I get up from my seat, press the eject button for the disc tray to come out, press it again, sit back down, and hope that it recognizes and loads up this time. The various activities I do while I wait are pray, do 20 push-ups, get a snack, go to the bathroom, or do the picture-in-picture thing that I described earlier.

Don't get me wrong, I am very happy with my Xbox and I see it as a miracle that it can still load up Halo 2 (Project Gotham and LIVE Arcade are another story), and I am grateful that I can play this great game with a lot of great people which are on my LIVE friend's list.

I used to be really superstitious. When I first got LIVE, (this was before the major non-recognizing was going on) I made a promise to God that I would read the Bible and before playing on LIVE in the day that played. I thought that the way it worked was if I don't read, it don't recognize, if I actually keep my promise to God (just as a sidenote probably not a good idea not to make a promise to God like that) it would load up. I soon found out that this wasn't necessarily true. However, today I read and prayed, without being constantly thinking about playing Halo later, and it only took three tries.

I think the trick is to just read the Bible and pray without the intention of doing it so that I can play video games faster or to use it as a trick to get it to work, but instead to actually grow in the Lord.

And here I am again, back in my same-old superstitious nature!

Seeking Your Funny Halo 2 LIVE Quotes!

Hey people!

Y'know those things that appear at the top of my blog as quotes? It's a blogger hack! I know, pretty l33t huh? Uh... Ok maybe not l33t, just \_ee7...
but as for \_337? Well that's out of the question.

The point is that I know a lot of you have some funny things that have been said on LIVE in your bag of tricks, and I'm considering adding some of those into the mix that randomly appear at the top of the blog! I thought it would be cool if you could submit your own funny Halo 2-related quote and I would consider considering putting it into the mix, of course with it being attributed to your Gamertag!

So press refresh a few times, look at the quote change each time, get a feel for it, and share your Halo 2 LIVE funny quotes!
Comment Away!

11 Things to do waiting in Halo 2

1. Drop and give me 20! Push-ups of course. I actually did this once when I was waiting for someone to finish their matchmade game. You'd be surprise what a difference it makes, especially if you were tired. It really woke me up and made me alert.
2. Read a few Verses. From the Bible. With Proverbs you can read one at a time and can just stop reading when you need to, it's like a bunch of Chinese Fortune-Cookie Proverbs in one place, except they're Jewish.
3. Create a Gametype. One thing you could do is visit http://h2g.halo2webring.com, copy-paste a few of the gametypes you like onto a Word document, print it out, and next time you're just sitting in the menu, you'll have a few gametypes to make.
4. Let's play "Go get a snack". Why not?
5. Watch some TV. After all you're in the right place for it! Just be in a pregame lobby, have it set to "Invite only", invite all who you want to join your party, and then change the channel! Make sure you keep your headset on so that you can hear them when they join the party.
6. Two words: Rumble. Training. I call this one an "all-purpose" playlist. You can ask your friend to message you when he's done and tell him that you'll quit the game and join him when he sends the message. You can also use this playlist if you have 7 people or whatever and don't know what to do.
7. Write a Rap. Just for fun. Try it. It can be about anything, like having to wait for people to finish their game! Then you can present it to them, providing they aren't prejudiced or uber-critical towards you. I find that the less time I've known the person, the more open they are towards me rapping.
8. Manage your friends list. It's always good to be in control of who's on your friends list and who's not. There's a 100 limit to how many people you can have on it, and maybe there are some people you were wanting to send a friend request to.
9. Look at your Recent Players list and leave feedback on bad gamertags. Hey, if you have the time, and aren't getting a snack, it couldn't hurt to do your part in the Halo 2 universe.
10. My life is good. real good... Go away. Read some books! If you've gotten this far down the list, chances are you might be waiting for awhile! Perhaps maybe you could check out some of the chives of this blog, ar-chives that is.
11. Speaking of which, how about working on your Nacho Libre Impersonation?

inv plz

After a few months of having LIVE, I realized that it was difficult to listen to voice messages during games, post-game, pregame... hey, the only time I could really listen to a voice message was either in a lobby by myself or in the menu!

Upon realizing this, I decided to express my thoughts in text messages. Text messages in Halo 2 are clear and concise and get the point across.

But take a long time to type! This is why I would shorten everything. "Invite me when you are finished please" became "inv wen d0ne p". I soon decided to switch the shorter and more comical "inv pee". That was a lot of fun. I imagined people's reactions and such but I'm sure they understood completely...

Now most of the time I just say "i". I know it might be lazy but what else would someone have to say. I don't even have to say "i w d p" (invite when done please) since they aren't going to recieve the message until they're "done"!

New Halo 2 Friend's List "Feature"!

Many of you readers may have noticed a new phenomena in Halo 2 on Xbox LIVE. After playing a match, and proceeding back to the pregame lobby, press the "Y" button to look at your friends list and watch all the events that unfolded on your friends list during the game play out in a matter of seconds. Add a techno beatbox "ooonsss"-er and ya got yerselves your very own sound-and-light show!

I'm not sure if this is on accident or on purpose, but truth is there is a bright side to this, aside from this new feature which will surely give Xbox LIVE players bragging rights, you don't have to worry about recieving messages from your friends during a game. Even if they send you messages during the game, your motion sensor will be safe from the popping up of pesky rectangles. Indeed, the only active camo sound effect you shall hear during the game would be from picking up Active Camo.

Sometimes I would try my thumbs at the untactical task of messaging my friends during games, but now my only worry is that people might think I'm ignoring them. I hope that I can still recieve messages during Custom Games! Well I'll be safe because I send party invites to all my friends anyways!

Favorite Witty Halo 2 LIVE Quotes

Even though there are the occaisonal uncreative greifers churning out the same unoriginal vile things, there are also many smarter and better things that can be said, some of which are quite funny and thought provoking! Here's a few that either me or someone else came up with, and you're welcome to comment on these or tell me a few of your own favorite Halo 2 LIVE quotes.

"Sorry if I stole your kill and you're welcome if I helped you." -GarbageMan77

"So anyway, I'm pretty relaxed, though I play to win, but for the joy of the game, not for my identity or a shiny number next to my gamertag which will fade away!" -SDtektiv

"If your greatest concern is the outcome of this match, your life is far less complicated than mine." -SDtektiv

"Because you beat me, you automatically called me a n00b... does this mean that you believe that you are only good enough to beat n00bs?" -SDtektiv

Turn Annoyers into Bots! Mute them!

Something that people want for Halo 3 is Bots, meaning having computer-controlled opponents on Multiplayer Maps. In Halo 2 you can already have Bots, simply by muting annoying people. I shall now call this the InstaBot function. From your TV at least, tt has the same effect as them getting voice-banned, and you can un-ban any time.

Pregame Lobby Etiquette Rant

Perhaps you're like me and sit in awe of people who don't know how to act in a pregame lobby, if so, you can read on and chuckle inside in remembrance of people who don't think of these obvious things.

First of all, the Party Leader is the Boss! If he asks you for game suggestions, then you can say what game you want to play. If he picks a custom game that you don't like, don't tell him to change it, just LEAVE!!!

If you have your heart set on a specific game, and the party leader doesn't want to play that game, then you should go and start a party of your own. Seriously. I f he doesn't ask you for a gametype suggestion, then there's a good chance he ain't takin' game requests!

For example, late yesterday there was people in a party with Foo Mo Jive, and they start saying, "I don't like that game, I don't like this, wah wah wah!" Well, here's an idea, if you don't like the games he plays, then what are you doing in this here Pregame Lobby? You have a plethora of matchmaking and custom games that you could choose from! If playing with Foo Mo Jive as your party leader is so important to you, then you should be willing to let him pick the game! If it would be so horrible to play that special gametype, then LEAVE!!! Trust me, there are people waiting who would be more than willing to take your slot in the game, and enjoy themself without complaining!

That was just one time though, I have to give my props to the Podtacular people because except for that one tiny little time, they have been very awesome to play alongside!