Another year has passed in the world of the Hushed Casket. For over 4 years we’ve been lanning, laughing, flaming, eating, drinking, throwing, riding, hauling, troubleshooting, rafting, golfing, bowling, talking, watching, listening, reading, learning, graduating, working, earning, serving, fighting, protecting, and leading.

Thanks for four great years. Welcome to all the new members who joined us over the last year. Another gathering is being planned. We'll most likely meet at Rayne’s in a few weeks.

We've come a long way baby from gaming in 2001 to hopping on the Se7enth column in 2002. We didn't just play HALO. We LAN'd Halo! Rather than grow into a community of gamers (and bad Warthog drivers) we grew into a community of friends. Thanks for another year of memories.

Speaking of memories...

2002-2003: Hushed Casket on Bungie.net Se7enth Column
2003-2005: old hushedcasket.com

Legendary content via archive.org!

So, what has happened in the last year in the world of the Hushed Casket? I’m glad you asked:

As usual we held multiple LAN’s. Some were major (20+ gamers) and well thought out. Others were spontaneous and unorganized. Yet, they were all just as fun as the others. As usual, our TVs, Xboxes, and networking equipment racked up tons of miles as they were transported all over creation for gatherings. No one can be sure, but it's believed that FoulBreed's TV nicknamed "The Cutting Edge" (given to him by Midnight) actually has enough miles on it to circle the globe. Twice.

Midnight went to Fallajuh, Iraq for 6 months and 16 days. He owned – accomplished his mission, saw a war, blogged about his experiences, pissed in Saddam’s commode, got mentioned in the New York Times and ended up writing for the New York Times Select for a brief stint and Michael Yon. But most importantly, he won a HALO tournament in Iraq. Midnight is the best HALO player in Iraq.

Midnight even got play on the airwaves...
FrontlineForumCmtByMarkLevin06012006.wma

Military.com showed Midnight some love and recognized him as one of the most influential military bloggers on the web.

THX continued its tradition of fellowship through all types of sports and gaming, including group outings for disc golf, mountain biking, bowling, eating, and watersports.

Several THX’ers earned college degrees and high school diplomas this past year.
killer D – BS in Mechanial Engineering, UAH
taggirl – HS diploma
Slayer – HS diploma
Sparda – BS in Management of Information Systems, UAH

THX now has 14 members with post-graduate degrees. 13 are scientists or engineers. Lopsided unless some other people come out of the woodworks.

THX has several younglings working toward earning their college degrees.

…and sparda is shooting for a MBA at UAH

Speaking of sparda, he got hitched. W00t.

Hawgdaddy is about to get hitched (officially) also. Invites are in the mail.

Insane was re-released into the wild. It's rumored he's planning a monster party called "Dewayne'a'Palooza"

Rayne bought another house (“another”, well, because…she hasn’t sold her old one). She may become THX's first bona fide realtor (spouses don't count, Convict).

She hosted her first LAN/cookout/party/"Slayer talks about dogs and chickens while Mintz plays XBOX360 demos".

Daremo bought his first house – AND HAS YET TO HOST A LAN!

…on his big honkin’ HDTV…and network space.

Who am I kidding? THIS GUY hasn’t found CAPTIAN KEYES yet in HALO 1 - STILL!

Ace and Briiingit bought a condo. Ace is rumored to occasionally host LANs that aren't really LANs. Everyone just sits in the same room and plays campaign.

Reverend and CaseyMae got a sweet new pad in which a lot of THX helped them move into. His grass still isn't growing. But who goes outside when you've got a huge HDTV?

I talked dirtyJ into moving to Huntsville when he gets out of the Navy. He's moving in a few weeks. He's never been to Huntsville. We'll have to have a "Welcome DJ LAN" for ya'.

Let’s see, Killer D hung with Hollywood celebs like J Love Hewitt and himself. He's still debating whether to call her back.

Mintz met Tom Hanks and wet himself.

Midnight met a lot of sleepy insurgents in the middle of the night. They were slightly less enthused than he was and hope he doesn't call again.

THX donated about $200 to Army Emergency Relief victims and put on a HALO 2 tournament led by RBC3 here in the States. GG.

THX got up on MySpace. Why? Good question…but we are there. The space is here: http://groups.myspace.com/thx

Mintz created Halo:Portable which provides a lot of juicy HALO love to the HALO community. He’s even doing a podcast and has a small and slightly psycho fanbase.

He even got a mention in the Halo Graphic Novel by Marvel and Bungie

…and Bungie featured him in one of their community spotlights which bolted him into internet stardom

…and accordingly sucked down a ton of bandwidth from the THX network rendering it offline for 1 week. Ouch.

!Oh! the withdrawals we all had for that long week. Thank God for MySpace.

A little thing called the XBOX 360 was released. THX managed to rack up a ton of those things – camping out all across North Alabama – or just talking to a pretty girl behind the counter – or just walking into an effin Wal-Mart one week before Christmas and finding 3 Premium Systems sitting right in front of you! Are you kidding me?

And then the XBOX 360’s started breaking. FoulBreed’s sounds like a 747 taking off while it is powered on. Bullet’s started blinking like a Christmas tree. Slayer’s did too. CB’s hard drive went out on him. Mine – well, Lord knows what is wrong with mine. It's in the mail back to Microsoft. And not to mention all the discs that got ruined. Just ask J-Dogg after Midnight sniped him in CoD2.

Speaking of my XBOX 360, Bungie showed my mobile LAN center on their frontpage for a few days thanks to KP’s writeup about LANbex. Noice.

And THX is continuing their philanthropy as we have announced a new initiative to buy a paver (a stone or brick) for the new sidewalk at UAH. Proceeds will help raise money for UAH scholarships.

That's a quick recap of Year 4 in the Hushed Casket. We've got bigger plans for Year 5. Stay tuned.