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Half-Life – Weapon Guide
PlayStation 2
Weapon Guide by Yojimbo_Beta
Version: 1 | Updated: 06/21/08
Copyright (C) 2008 Jimmy Breck-McKye. 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Enter this keyword into a text-locator feature (Ctrl+F on most text viewers) and you'll be directed straight to the keyworded section. - Copyright / disclaimer [cpy] - About this guide [abt] - The weapons [wns] - Crowbar [CRW] - Glock 9mm [GLK] - .357 Colt [357] - MP-5 Assault Rifle [MP5] - Shotgun [SGN] - Crossbow [XBW] - Rocket launcher [RPG] - Tau Cannon [TAU] - Gluon Gun [GLU] - Hivehand [HNT] - Hand grenades [HGD] - Satchel Charges [STL] - Snarks [SNK] - Tripmines [MIN] - Single player weapon [loc] locations - Underwater [uwf] functionality - Frequently Asked [FAQ] Questions - Contacting me [cme] - Version history [ver] - Credits [cts] ------------------------ Copyright and [cpy] disclaimer ------------------------ Firstly: I, the author, have used the best effort in preparing this FAQ. I make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this FAQ and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. There are no warranties which extend beyond the descriptions contained in this paragraph. No warranty may be created or extended by anyone. The accuracy and completeness of the information provided herein and the opinions stated herein are not guaranteed or warranted to produce any particular results, and the advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for every individual. I shall not be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages. I, Jimmy Breck-McKye, the author, claim no responsibility what so ever, so if anything from this FAQ corrupts, damages, screws up, creates faults with, or does anything else that harms your computer, creating data lost, or harms anything to do with you or with the world, I claim no responsibility! Secondly: This guide is written and compiled by Jimmy Breck-McKye, copyright 2008. You may not copy or reproduce ANY PART of it under any circumstances except for personal, private use. It may not be placed on any web site or otherwise distributed publicly without advance written permission. Use of the guide on any other web site or as a part of any public display is strictly prohibited, and a violation of copyright. Please ask for permission by contacting the author first before using this document for any reason, chances are I've no problem of giving permission as long as I receive the proper credit. ------------------------ About this [abt] guide ------------------------ Why a Half-Life guide in 2008? Well, it remains a popular multiplayer game, and regardless of its age still stands as one of the best First Person Shooters out there, surpassing even current releases in terms of level design, scripted sequence, and, of course, armory. Half-life deserves to be played to death even ten years after its release, and besides which, the whole HL/Opposing Force/Blue Shift package now comes in one cheap bundle thanks to STEAM. Otherwise, I've been looking to get round to writing an FAQ of some sort for some time - and I thought that I'd make my first project a relatively small one on something I wouldn't have to do much research on, a game I've returned to over and over in the last ten years. Besides, I'm keen to try and finally wipe out misguided opinions in the .357 vs Crossbow debate, and why not inform folks whilst doing so? :) Anyway, this guide is just that: a guide. Though I've striven for complete accuracy in every area, there are portions of this guide that will always be tainted by my own subjectivity, such is the nature of its contents (namely, recommended usages for each particular piece. Ultimately you have to adapt the weapons to the style of play you feel most comfortable with, and enjoy the most. With that out of the way, let's get started. ------------------------ The weapons [wns] ------------------------ ------------------------ Crowbar [CRW] ------------------------ Primary fire: Swings the crowbar. Hold down fire to quickly thrash it about. Secondary fire: -- Ammo: n/a The very first weapon you come across, but not one to be forgotten. Whilst useless in any sort of ranged combat, the crowbar is excellent for dispatching a few very specific enemies and, more importantly, smashes crates and the like without using any valuable ammunition. Though not especially powerful, Gordon can swing the crowbar with surprising speed. Specific enemies: Used properly, the crowbar is an excellent means of dispatching weak, agile enemies that rely on close range attacks - especially when they can only approach from one direction. Headcrab infested air ducts, or, worse, snark infested tunnels, are made somewhat easier to deal with by the crowbar. I also tend to use this weapon when dealing with the baby headcrabs on xen, so hard to hit with any gun through their sheer speed. Some also swear by using it as an ammo-less alternative for dealing with barnacles: swing the crowbar when close to the creatures mouth, but before its bite connects, and you should destroy it. Keep in mind that this means you'll take falling damage if the barnacles is especially high, though. Never use it... Any other time - enemies with ranged attacks, or enemies that fight toe-to-toe yet can sustain several blows from a crowbar will easily dispatch you. Zombies can be bludgeoned to death, certainly, but the tactic is to secure a short volley of hits to the creature's head before quickly backpedaling - or else its powerful claws will connect. Multiplayer: It's quite common in multiplayer games to see players sneaking up on enemies (especially stationary opponents) before mincing them with a volley of crowbar hits. Certainly, the crowbar does a great deal of damage in a short space of time, and anyone successful in closing in on their opponent will often come out the victor whilst using the bar. But ultimately this remains more a tactic of humiliation than a sensible means of play - there are better ways of dealing similar or greater damage from range, and to attempt a melee attack in any other circumstance is suicide. ------------------------ 9mm glock [GLK] ------------------------ Primary fire: Semi-automatic fire with significant accuracy and good range. Hold down fire for a volley of shots. Deals 8 damage per hit. Secondary fire: Quicker (though by no means 'rapid') fire at the cost of accuracy. Ammo: Both modes use the same 17-round clips that are scattered freely through the facility and the hands of dead security guards. Reloading is quick. Be aware also that this weapon shares ammunition with the assault rifle. The glock is one of the very first weapons you'll handle, and though you quickly acquire more powerful means of dispatching enemies, don't forget about the trusty 9mm. Besides being one of the few weapons that can fire underwater, the pistol is reasonably quick and, more importantly, accurate. In long-range situations where cover is easily available, consider choosing the pistol to conserve ammunition. Specific enemies: As well as being handy for picking off stationary barnacles, in a pinch it's also useful against the flying alien controllers that appear towards the close of the game when at *especially* long distances- hard to hit, mobile but weak, the pistol can prove more effective against them than slower and more powerful long-range weapons with more expensive munitions (such as the revolver or crossbow). Use it to detonate tripmines from a distance, and to deal with houndeyes and zombies at medium range. Never use it...: In all other situations, however, the pistol simply doesn't have the stopping power to deal with enemies before they manage to injure you. Enemies whose attacks are hard to evade (human grunts) or situations where cover is scarce demand weapons with sheer stopping power - the pistol is absolutely not the tool for this job. If an alien controller is close by, I wouldn't even think of using the glock. Multiplayer: The pistol is often the default spawn weapon. If you're confident and a good aim, a succession of headshots at long range can stand as a reasonable offense, if there are no other alternatives. As a rule, however, you should equip yourself with whatever else is around before entering the foray. ------------------------ Colt .357 [357] ------------------------ Primary fire: Semi-automatic fire of a single round that delivers 40 damage. Exceptionally accurate. Secondary fire: In multiplayer, secondary fire activates a small scope that provides a zoomed view for fine aiming. Ammo: The gun can be loaded with up to 6 rounds, out of a maximum stock of 36. Ammunition is relatively scarce. This hand-cannon is difficult to dislike - aesthetically as much as tactically. A chunky, masculine weapon with an excellent feel, but also an extremely powerful firearm that, with careful aim, can take down practically anything. Remember that a headshot triples weapon damage - that means that a .357 round through some poor soul's skull deals a massive 120 damage - more than a direct explosive hit. Only the bosses, the dreaded ichthyosaur and the bullet-immune opponents can survive that, even on Hard mode. Of course, the .357 does have its own drawbacks - a low firing rate and reasonable reload time counter its massive power, but, ultimately this remains my favourite piece of half-life weaponry. Unlike the crossbow, whose arrows take time to reach their target, the .357 simply involves pointing the gun at something you want dead, and then firing. Specific enemies: The Colt is well suited to tackling alien grunts and human marines. Unless it is particularly agile and difficult to hit, most things are a great deal less threatening with a .357 by your side. Never use it... On common or weak enemies, such as headcrabs or houndeyes. Evasive enemies such as snarks should never be approached with the Colt: not only are they exceptionally weak, but the low firing rate and considerable reload time put a player at serious risk if they don't secure hits. But most importantly of all, .357 ammo is too scarce to use on frail creatures. Multiplayer: The Colt requires considerable accuracy to be effective - as mentioned above and in the shotgun overview, weapons with long reload times and slow firing rates leave their users vulnerable should their accuracy be poor, (and also, should their ping be high). Without a decent connection the slight lag makes aiming considerably more difficult. Otherwise, though, the Colt is a great way to conduct combat at long range, and a good choice in most open-area fights. ------------------------ MP-5 Submachinegun [MP5] ------------------------ Primary fire: Automatic fire of 9mm rounds that deal 5 damage per bullet. Fair accuracy. Secondary fire: Fires grenades that detonate on impact, in an arc. Each grenadedeals potentially 100 damage with a direct hit, with splash damage. Ammo: The MP-5 uses 50 round magazines, commonly found in the hands of deceasedhuman grunts, with a maximum stock of 250 bullets. Secondary fire employs up to ten grenades specific to the weapon (*not* hand grenades) and not commonly available. A nice piece of equipment that you'll turn to throughout the course of the game, the MP-5 is well suited to a variety of situations and enemies. Though individual rounds do little damage, and at long range the weapon is a little inaccurate, a steady stream of well-aimed bullets can eliminate many creatures, both human and alien, especially when the chest and head areas are targeted. Secondary fire is handy for terminating groups of enemies, grunts behind cover, and clearing out rooms, but also on occasions that demand explosive damage to particularly strong individuals. However, be aware that the MP5 grenades, though not rare, should never be fired without good purpose. Specific enemies: Use against soldiers, both human and xenian, and a spread of fully automatic fire can help eliminate snarks and baby heacrabs. Primary ammunition is abundant, and as such this weapon makes a nice 'default' weapon for dealing with the majority of Black Mesa's occupants. Never use it... There are few situation where using the MP-5 would be an especially bad idea, though there are plenty of circumstances where other weapons would be more appropriate. At close ranges, you may find that the assault rifle doesn't pack the punch necessary to take something down particularly quickly. At long ranges it isn't as accurate as some of its rivals - use the crossbow, Colt, or possibly Glock for high precision at these distances. Multiplayer: This will serve you well in most situations - try to predict an opponent's movements when launching grenades, and remember to focus your fire on an enemy rather than randomly spraying fire. Bullets are a little weak, so should an enemy close in on you you may fare better with the shotgun. This weapon is also great for covering yourself when fleeing - firing back whilst backpedaling is a great way to make your retreat safer. ------------------------ Shotgun [SGN] ------------------------ Primary fire: Fires a single shell. There is a noticeable delay before another shot can be fired. Secondary fire: Fires two shells in rapid succession. The firing delay is increased somewhat. Ammo: Up to 8 rounds can be loaded into the weapon, with a maximum of 125 rounds in stock. Reloading is slow, but can be interrupted simply by firing - handy to know in an emergency. Common fare in first person shooters, the half-life shotgun does not radically diverge from its predecessors in Doom and the like. As you would expect, the weapon is more accurate and powerful at close ranges, and possesses a low firing rate. Rounds pack a considerable punch, as each shell contains six pieces of shot, dealing 8 damage each, meaning a maximum of 48 damage, or 96 in secondary fire mode. A headshot at mid to short range will often prove fatal. However, as the distance between the user and target increases, the shotgun's effectiveness falls rapidly. Specific enemies: A blast to the chest will deal with zombies, and a shot to the head-neck-chest area will usually dispatch a human opponent. The shotgun is also well suited to dealing with bullsquids and vortiguants, so fire away. Never use it... Against particularly agile enemies (unless you have remarkable confidence in your accuracy), or at long range. You'll just be wasting your ammo. And with a long reload time, you'll be putting yourself in danger, too. Multiplayer: The shotgun has always been a popular choice in multiplayer - easy to use, strong, and familiar, you'll often see it equipped. Of course, it also helps that with good aim the shotgun is deadly. Remember, though, that reloading can be time-consuming, so be sure that cover is available when the weapon is empty, and that you don't miss too often, else you'll be put at serious disadvantage. ------------------------ Crossbow [XBW] ------------------------ Primary fire: Fire a bolt, delivering 50 damage. Projectiles take a little time to reach their destination. Bolts are explosive in multiplayer. Secondary fire: Use the scope. In zoomed mode, the weapon no longer fires explosive bolts. Ammo: The closest Half-Life has to a sniper rifle, the crossbow is well built for stealthily taking out enemies, not least stationary ones, from afar. A quiet weapon, but one whose projectiles make their own distinct noise, this equipment is possibly far better suited to keeping your position unknown than hiding its own presence. It's powerful, too, with a potential 150 damage should you pull off a headshot successfully. No wonder it's a multiplayer favourite. Bolts take a little time to reach their targets - to aim effectively, you must aim in front of his or her position as they run, and try to predict their movement. If they run in anything other than a straight line, however, prediction becomes a great deal more difficult. Reloading, and the pause between firing loaded bolts, is rather slow - be sure to have some sort of protection to fall upon between shots. In multiplayer mode, bolts fired in primary mode are explosive, though sport a disappointing splash damage range. Please see the FAQ below for an extended discussion on the inferiority of the bow to the Colt for sniping purposes. Specific enemies: I choose the bow for dealing with stronger opponents, such as grunts (either human or alien) at long ranges. The crossbow is great for dealing with human enemies in stationary positions without revealing your own location. This is *the* weapon for dealing with ichthyosaurs. Never use it... Bolts need to be saved for sturdier opponents, and those easier to hit, due to the weapon's lack of speed and the finite speed of the projectile. Some enemies can quickly close in if not dispatched quickly, such as a charging bullsquid or alerted soldiers, so the potential exposure of the weapon's long reloading time makes it a poor choice for these circumstances. ------------------------ Rocket Launcher [RPG] ------------------------ Primary fire: Launches a rocket propelled grenade towards a laser 'painted' position, that moves in a straight line if no laser 'painted' target is available. A direct hit from a rocket delivers 100 damage, with a considerable splash-damage radius. Secondary fire: Turns on or off the RPG's own laser guidance system, illuminating a position and marking it as a target. Ammo: The weapon holds one rocket, with a maximum of five ammo in reserve (more in multiplayer). Ammo is rare. What FPS wouldn't have a rocket launcher of some description? Half-life follows the tradition, but also breaks the mould with this adaptation of the shooter classic. Missiles can be laser guided using a red 'pointer' projected out of the weapon itself, or 'blind-fired' in a straight line if the guidance system is switched off. This means that you can steer rockets to connect with moving targets, or twist them around obstacles or even, with a deft flick of the mouse, sharp turns. This takes a lot of practice, so I'd recommend trying it out in a map like killbox, or hosting your own empty server to get the hang of it. Be aware that rockets can't recognize their parent weapon's laser points (i.e. they can't tell one laser painter from another), and it is possible to actually commandeer an opponent's missile. This takes possibly more luck than skill, but seems to depend on placing your own pointer such that it is as close to the center of the missile's 'vision' as possible, if that makes sense. However, I've only very rarely been able to pull it off, and can't yet confirm a method for reliably doing this. Turning the laser off can be helpful at times - you can't turn and flee whilst aiming a missile, and this often leaves you exposed to enemy fire. Bear this in mind. Oh, and another thing: reloading is slow. Be sure to have some available between shots. Specific enemies: This is the ideal weapon for taking out Apache helicopters and tanks, which is presumably why RPG ammo is often found conveniently close to such vehicles. On occasion you might fire this against a large group of alien grunts, but otherwise, save it for special occasions and particularly meaty enemies. Be aware also that most Gargantuas are to be killed by some exploit of the level (the air strikes in Surface Tension) rather than by explosive fire. Never use it... Unless dealing with a slow or flying enemy, always aim at the floor under your opponent's feet or a wall running by him. Don't fire directly at him (or her). That way, should you miss, you'll still deal major splash damage, rather than seeing it sail away harmlessly (exposing you during the RPG's long reloading period). Don't waste this on weak or nimble flying enemies (e.g. alien controllers), nor on enemies that can be dispatched with weapons dependent on more common ammunition. I shouldn't need to mention this, but at close quarters a rocket can deal considerable splash damage to *you*. Multiplayer: The RPG is a common weapon in deathmatch, thanks to sheer power and relative ease of use. Fragging with splash damage is often reasonably easy, especially from an elevated position. That said, reloading is time consuming and the rockets leave a stark white trail of smoke in their path, pointing towards the position from where the shell was fired - so after the rocket connects, beat feet, and quickly. The laser 'painter' is visible from quite a distance, so you may prefer to keep it switched off before taking aim in order to keep your presence unknown. I would really recommend reading SBolle's guide on Half-Life multiplayer for both weapon tips and advice on how to use the RPG effectively. ------------------------ Tau Cannon [TAU] ------------------------ Primary fire: Rapidly shoots a series of particle beams that inflict 20 damage per hit. Uses 2 ammo per shot. Secondary fire: Hold down secondary fire to charge up the weapon, and then release the button to discharge all stored energy in a single high power beam yhat penetrates certain surfaces to create a deadly explosion of high-energy leptons at the exit point. In single player, over-charging results in an explosion that damages the user: once fully charged, the player only has a few seconds available to discharge the gun without a potentially fatal overheat. On occasion the secondary beam does not penetrate a surface, but bounces off it. Nevertheless, this can still be exploited to create a deadly ricochet effect. Ammo: Holds up to 100 depleted uranium pellets, shared with the gluon gun. This weapon does not use magazines, rather the entire munition stock feeds directly into the weapon. Black Mesa's role as a military research center produced this, a prototype for the assault rifle of the future. Firing exotic subatomic particles, the Tau cannon (sometimes called the 'Gauss gun') looks as odd and unfamiliar as its high-tech mechanism, and works rather differently to most conventional weapons you'll have played with before too. Primary fire is inaccurate, but can eliminate enemies quickly. Secondary fire, however, provides the most interesting uses. A charged up tau cannon fires a single, accurate beam with power proportional to the amount of energy stored up in the weapon. This weapon passes through walls to generate an explosion of energy on the other side of the object, dealing significant damage to anything unfortunate enough to be within radius. In multiplayer comes another interesting feature of this weapon's charge mode. The overload explosion is gone, to be replaced with a different drawback, a particularly potent recoil. I say 'drawback', but in actuality this recoil can be exploited for the purposes of 'gauss jumping'. Point the weapon towards the floor at one's feet, and the recoil now shoots the player far into the air, further if timed with a jump. Though there's a real risk of taking damage on landing, with practice this is a great way to reach areas either difficult or even impossible to reach by conventional means. Specific enemies: Depleted uranium isn't too cheap, and primary fire is notoriously inaccurate, so save the tau cannon for charged shots at particularly formidable targets. Consider firing them at tanks and military vehicles, or the occasional alien grunt. Some people swear by the gauss gun for dispatching the flying alien controllers that appear in the later chapters of the game: if you've the accuracy, then do so, by all means. Otherwise keep the ammo for the gluon gun. Never use it... As mentioned, ammunition needs to be saved for worthy opponents, and primary fire is not recommended excepting circumstances where a large portion of beams will connect (closer distances, or very large targets). This weapon is better used against slower targets that are easier to hit: the tau's secondary fire demands accuracy. Multiplayer: A common choice in multiplayer, the gauss gun is recommended when latency / ping can be kept to a minimum. Picking people off at long range never tires, and the introduction of the tau brings something totally new to bear when your rivals attempt to take cover. Conversely, it can often be safer when tackling a tau user to stay in the open: it's a great deal easier to hit someone with the particle explosion than with the focused beam. ------------------------ Gluon gun [GLU] ------------------------ Primary fire: Fires the beam. Each unit of ammunition used deals 14 damage. The beam possesses excellent accuracy, and ignores armour. Secondary fire: n/a Ammo: Like the tau cannon, this weapon uses depleted uranium pellets fed directly from stock, rather than held in a magazine. Possibly the closest half-life has to an 'ultimate weapon', the gluon gun (AKA 'Egon gun')apparently disrupts the fundamental structure of matter, reducing targets to a messy mass of mincemeat. 14 damage per hit may not sound impressive, but the gluon gun fires its continuous vortex of energy at a frenzied rate, destroying most targets in moments. Of course, this also means that the gluon gun eats through valuable ammo at dramatic speed. This means that accuracy is key - never spray egon gun beams randomly, but rather pinpoint your fire. Specific enemies: Save the gluon gun for special occasions, where a large number of powerful enemies need to be dispatched quickly. Large groups of alien grunts might qualify, but I'd certainly recommend using this device during the indoor portions of 'Interloper', especially the final 'spiral staircase' room. You'll know it when you get there. Never use it: There's nothing, except the Gargantua and military vehicles, that stands up to the gluon gun. Just don't waste ammo on houndeyes or headcrabs. Multiplayer: Though not necessarily a match winner, the gluon gun nevertheless remains a lusted-after piece of equipment in most games. For that reason alone you'll often draw fire, though of course it doesn't help that most players will (rightly) regard you as a real threat. Still, with the gluon gun, it doesn't especially matter - with good aim, any opponent can be killed in a few moments, and as weapon accuracy remains constant regardless of range this is probably one of the best weapons for a variety of circumstances. The only precaution I give is to not eat through ammo without good reason. ------------------------ Hivehand [HNT] ------------------------ Primary fire: Launches an insect, in semi-automatic manner, that possesses the capacity to hone in on enemies. Each hornet deals 8 damage. Secondary fire: Rapidly fires the hornets without honing abilities. Ammo: The hivehand holds up to 8 bees, that regenerate whilst the weapon is not being used. This strange bio-mechanical device (also referred to as the 'hornetgun') is the principal weapon of the alien grunts, who seem to have hivehands actually grafted onto their arms. In a hornetgun standoff, unfortunately, it seems to work better at annoying you than at mounting an effective offense against *them*. Whilst the honing ability appears impressive, the rate of fire and actual power of this weapon is somewhat less so, and munitions don't regenerate nearly as quickly as you'd like. It is, however, one of the few firearms that works underwater, though by the time you have it there are few instances where you'll need to go swimming around. A neat trick I once heard involved using primary fire to determine if an enemy waited around a corner - the hornets would swerve to hit their target, and even if they did not connect, your opponent would lose the advantage of surprise. Specific enemies: the honing abilities make this a decent means of dealing with the evasive baby headcrabs and snarks. Otherwise, I would rarely use this weapon. Never use it... Unless you run out of ammunition, I just wouldn't otherwise use the hivehand. If you must choose it, be sure to have some sort of cover available to protect you whilst ammo regenerates. Multiplayer: Some high-ping players may find the hornetgun useful when their latency makes aiming difficult. Alternatively, it can be used to goad enemies out of cover, should they be hiding behind a wall or in a bunker. Otherwise, though, stick to more powerful pieces of equipment. ------------------------ Grenade [HGD] ------------------------ Primary fire: Throws a grenade - press fire to release the pin, and release fire to throw the device. Be aware that should the timer expire whilst the grenade is held, it will explode the moment Gordon releases it. The fuse lasts five seconds, and a direct hit deals 100 splash damage. Throwing distance is dependent on the angle of launching. Secondary fire: n/a Ammo: Up to ten grenades can be held, to be thrown individually. The stock of hand grenades is *not* shared with the supply of MP-5 grenades. Chances are that you'll already be familiar with the essential principle of a hand grenade - a timed explosive that can be thrown. As you would expect, grenades can bounce off walls, but in Half-Life tend not to roll once they have touched a floor. This means that, with a little practice, they can be used with surprising accuracy. A handy feature of the grenades is that they can be held in their armed state before throwing - meaning that a proficient user can time the detonation to occur the moment the grenade lands, or whilst still in the air, should he or she choose it. This tactic is often called 'cooking' a grenade. Be aware that many enemies, especially humans, can hear grenades on landing, and tend to flee. Specific enemies: Grenades are great for groups of reasonably powerful enemies, such as grunts or vortiguants, or even a particularly large cluster of weak creatures. Though humans tend to flee grenades, you can exploit this to flush soldiers out of cover . Chuck grenades into manned machinegun nests, or at automated turrets to silence them permanently. They are also useful for distracting the massive tentacle organism that inhabits the Blast Pit chapter. The fact that they travel in an arc, in essence, means that they can be thrown above cover - useful when dealing with the snipers in Surface Tension. Never use it: In enclosed spaces, there's a real risk of dealing damage to yourself, as there is with any explosive device. Grenades can only be thrown a shortish distance; they are not suitable for long-range exchanges of fire (as you would expect). Using this weapon is mostly common sense, really. Multiplayer: Hand grenades aren't especially a common sight in multiplayer games: difficult to aim, they also take time to detonate, and they don't have the range. The power and ease of use of other explosives typically freely available in online games make this a are choice. Still, with practice, they remain a means of dispatching a group of opponents if the user correctly times the explosion - but this is often reliant as much on luck as skill, so I would tend not to bother. They are, however, suited to clearing out snipers' nests / camping spots. ------------------------ Satchel Charge [STL] ------------------------ Primary fire: Drops an explosive charge if none are placed, detonates it and all others placed otherwise ('detonation mode' - Gordon will have the remote control in his hand). Satchels are slid across the floor a short distance. They are capable of dealing up to 150 damage, with splash effect. Secondary fire: If in 'detonation mode' (i.e. a charge has already been placed), secondary fire throws another satchel. Simple stuff, really. Ammo: You may carry up to 5 satchels, and throw one at once. They tend to be found in army munitions crates. A fairly simple concept, using a satchel involves no more than placing an explosive and detonating it at your will. Although it *can* be used offensively, much like a grenade (jump up and throw to have it arc through the air), it tends to be ineffective in such a capacity, and far better suited for trapping opponents. Such are the variety of ways these traps might be established that the only real limit on the possibilities is your own brain. Simple strategies involve chucking a stachel, poking around a corner to attract an enemy's attention, and detonating the charge as he follows. You can also detonate mines that are within the explosive's blast radius, too, though there's few things that stand up to direct damage to this weapon. Specific enemies: Anything prone to following you is bait. Human grunts, for all their intelligence, walk rather easily into satchel traps, and on occasion I've found it a nice way to dispatch the evasive but aggressive black ops assassins. Never use it: Obviously, ammo is too scarce to waste on headcrabs and houndeyes, but other than that you need to be aware that there are no alternate routes to your position if you intend to bait grunts or assassins. Oh, I suppose I should remind you that you need to stand well clear of the explosive, else severe injury might follow. Multiplayer: Satchels aren't especially common in deathmatch, considering the aggressive nature of play, and though they might be chucked about as grenades, it's rare that better alternatives are unavailable (e.g. RPGs, MP-5 grenades). Still, if you know that a specific opponent is coming, satchels are a nice way to score kills without putting yourself at risk. Some players also use them whilst fleeing, hoping that pursuers are sufficiently distracted by the promise of a kill to see the trap. On occasion I've seen them used in kamikaze tactics when a player is trapped at short quarters. I've also seen players place satchels on weapon pickups, hoping that they won't be noticed by greedy rivals, especially on satchel pickups themselves. Watch out for this. ------------------------ Snark [SNK] ------------------------ Primary fire: Throw a snark. Several snarks can be thrown. A snark bite deals 10 damage, a snark 'explosion' deals only 5. Secondary fire: n/a Ammo: Snark eggs (that often spawn snarks against you!) provide 5 with each pickup, up to a maximum capacity of 15. Snark, snark, snark, snark, snark. I love saying it. This is your 'pet', a particulalry aggressive alien creature that pursues non-xenian enemies and attacks them at close range, repeatedly. The snarks do not live long, however, and disappear in a burst of acid after a short time period. Their remaining lifespan is indicated by the squeaks they make: their cries increase pitch with time. Be aware that snarks will attack just about anything that doesn't come from xen - that means you, too, if the creature cannot find any viable alternative targets. They possess 2 health each, and explode upon death. Specific enemies: Snarks work well against human grunts, and can be used to locate assassins. Never use it... Obviously, when no terrestrial creatures other than yourself are available as targets. Be aware that snarks cannot jump over obstacles or long gaps. Multiplayer: The snark is an excellent choice for multiplayer - all opponents are viable snark targets, and a barrage of snarks invariably unleashes chaos. Most players will be distracted by these potentially deadly xenofauna, and often turn their attentions to either evasion or destruction. Though you won't often secure frags through snark usage alone, you will find it makes picking off panicking competitors all the more easy. Throw large groups of them to be effective, ideally from an elevated position (so they can't turn on you instead). ------------------------ Laser tripmine [MIN] ------------------------ Primary fire: Set a tripmine on the surface the player is looking at. A mine explosion can deal potentially 150 damage at close range, with splash damage. Secondary fire: n/a A useful tactical weapon, these mines emit a beam of light perpendicular to the surface the mine sits on. Should that beam be broken, or should the mine be damaged, it will instantly explode. There is a three second delay between setting a mine and its activation. The possibilities are endless, limited only by your imagination. Tripmines can be set up around corners to instantly kill approaching enemies - mines can be set up, enemies coaxed into pursuit, and almost certainly reduced to minced flesh. Tripmines can be placed on the floor to be shot at as a grunt passes by, or mines can be placed within proximity of each other's explosive range, to create a deadly chain of explosions. I'll leave you to imagine further applications. They can also, interestingly enough, be used as stepping stones. Place a mine on a wall, and it is possible to carefully jump onto the device itself. Theoretically a set of stairs can be created - there have been several shortcuts (especially useful in speedruns) that have exploited this 'feature'. Most players will never use it, but it's nice to know. Specific enemies: Anything that will chase you without being able to jump or duck is a possible candidate - especially something reasonably strong, as mines are not abundantly available. Grunts, both human and alien, are good choices. Though assassins can jump over them, it is nevertheless possible to place two mines, one above the other, in a passageway wall, to make it impassible. Ultimately, their application depends on your brain. Never use it... When pursuit is unlikely, or when several safe alternate routes are available to an enemy. Multiplayer: Multiplayer usage is not tremendously common, but does occur in certain maps, especially ones with tight enclosed spaces and plenty of narrow corners. It is possible to lay a mine on a wall, and hide a vertically facing mine within range of its blast radius, such that a player who destroys the first with a gun is killed by the second. Because multiplayer games are all about fast paced movement, many players move around with little attention to their environs, especially when fleeing more powerful opponents. You can exploit this, and the many choke points in several maps - placing them around the corners of narrow corridors, or at the top of ladders, is a common tactic. Placing them on spawn points is not looked upon kindly. Be aware also that you are exposed to attacks whilst placing a mine: I would recommend speed rather than precision when setting them down. ------------------------ Single Player [loc] Weapon Locations ------------------------ 1. Crowbar "Unforeseen consequences". At the end of the second laser-filled corridor, it lies right in front of you, next to a downed security guard. There is also an apparently unusable model of a crowbar near the start of Blast Pit, funnily enough. 2. Glock "Unforeseen consequences". This can be picked up either by killing a security guard, or grabbing it from the Barney who falls blasting a zombie as you enter 'Sector C: Coolant Reservoir'. 3. Colt Towards the end of Blast Pit - after destroying the tentacles, explore the hole they leave behind. A dead security officer lays next to an upturned barrel of radioactive waste, and he's holding the Colt. 4. MP-5 assault rifle Obtained from the hands of the many human grunts in 'We've Got Hostiles'. 5. Shotgun 'Office Complex'. 6. Crossbow 'Apprehension', before taking on the Ichthyosaur. 7. RPG 'Surface Tension' - after finishing the first cliffside portion, you'll deal with a shotgun grunt standing before metal double doors. Through there, you'll find the rocket launcher - right before an Apache helicopter shows up. Neat timing, eh? 8. Tau Cannon 'Questionable Ethics'. You'll hear a scientist warning a guard not to overcharge it, and then an explosion. Pick it out of the unfortunate Barney's hands. 9. Gluon Gun 'Lamda Complex' 10. Hivehand Can be taken from the arms of any alien grunt you kill, presumably after your first encounter with one in 'Questionable Ethics'. 11. Grenades Can be found early in 'Unforeseen Consequences', in the area the G-man disappears into. 12. Satchel Charge 'On a Rail' 13. Tripmines First found at the very end of 'Blast Pit' 14. Snarks 'Surface Tension'. ------------------------ Underwater [uwf] functionality ------------------------ Here's a list of the fourteen weapons, and in brief whether they work underwater or not: Weapon: Works underwater? CROWBAR YES 9MM GLOCK YES COLT .357 NO SHOTGUN NO MP-5 NO - NEITHER PRIMARY OR SECONDARY FIRE CROSSBOW YES RPG YES, BUT PROJECTILE SLOWED TAU CANNON NO GLUON GUN NO HIVEHAND YES GRENADES YES LASER TRIPMINES YES SATCHEL CHARGES YES SNARKS YES In particular, the crossbow is recommended for dispatching ichthyosaurs, the crowbar for those little underwater leeches that sap health. ------------------------ Frequently [FAQ] Asked Questions ------------------------ 1. Which is better for sniping, the .357 or the crossbow? Which is the better weapon overall? Strong cases can be made for preferring either weapon in long-range combat. Personally, though, despite the loss of ten damage per body hit, I would tend to recommend the Colt - here's a few reasons why: A. The projectile connects instantly By far the greatest trouble with the crossbow is the fact that arrows simply don't move at the same speed as bullets. This makes attacking n on-stationary targets a great deal more difficult, and though prediction can counter these disadvantages if your enemy moves in a straight line, should they begin zigzagging and moving randomly (a common tactic when players first hear a bolt whizzing past them), then aiming becomes a matter of chance, especially if the user intends to achieve a headshot. Obviously, this isn't a worry with the revolver. B. Missed shots don't easily reveal a sniper's interest to the target Obviously, the .357 is loud, and I'm certainly not claiming that the blast will go unnoticed. However, though the crossbow is noticeably quiet, it possesses a distinctive noise that follows the projectile - when a crossbow misses you, you'll know. And when you know a sniper takes an interest in you, out comes the 'zigzagging' tactic outlined above. At long range, it's far trickier to note the danger from a .357 in a hectic (and noisy) map, unless the Colt bullet happens to hit a wall or destructible object within the subject's vision. Even then, for many this has the appearance of random crossfire rather than purposeful sniping. The 'stealth' attributes of a crossbow simply don't come into play in a map such as, say, Crossfire. C. The revolver has a larger clip Though reloading the two weapons takes a similar amount of time, the greater clip size of a six-shooter ultimately means you'll be spending far less time reloading, and have far more opportunities to correct missed shots. The revolver can also carry a maximum stock of 36 rounds, the crossbow only 25. D. Explosive arrows are useless Frankly, their splash damage range is disappointing, and splash weapons need to be aimed towards a target's feet in order to prevent an explosive device harmlessly sailing past. Aiming at feet with a crossbow defeats the entire purpose of a 'low speed, high power' weapon - you're looking for as much damage per shot as is feasible without major tactical disadvantage. Oh, did I mention that the arrows only explode if you unequip the scope? Not looking good for the bow, is it? E. The colt's zoomed crosshair can be replaced Admittedly, the tiny single dot that stands for an aiming mechanism in the .357's secondary mode doesn't entirely lend itself to ease of use. That's not to claim that it's unworkable, rather that there are circumstances, such as desert themed maps and chains of explosions, where picking out crosshairs from the background can be tricky. Thankfully, help is at hand - simply download some new crosshairs, and replace the sprites.spr file in the valve sprites folder. Simple. F. You can use a zoom script in single-player G. Crossbow pickups are a source of attention H. 'Crossbowed' kill messages reveal the existence of a sniper G. The damage difference doesn't matter Ten damage is not an awful lot in most deathmatches, and though with a headshot that difference is tripled to 30, there's a few caveats that make me hesitate before awarding an advantage to the crossbow. Firstly, headshots with a bow are far more difficult and reliant upon good luck than those attempted with the magnum; secondly, opponents lacking HEV charge (i.e. reasonably fresh spawns) will die as a result of either hit to the skull. Many of those who *can* endure more than 120 damage will often be able to deal with 150, too - most often they'll be freshly charged, and how often in a busy server do *you* have more than 120 combined health except immediately after searching for batteries? Anything well tooled up will take more than one shot to the head with either the crossbow or the revolver, and frankly you've a far better chance of connecting the second time with your Colt than with your bow. Ultimately, becoming proficient in the use of both weapons is possibly the best long-term strategy for the purposes of adapting to any possible circumstance. There are plenty of moments and maps where pickups for the one weapon or the other are scarce or even non-existent (though the sniping-specific functions of a crossbow make it a target for restriction on servers where sniping is discouraged). Barring your own personal choice, comfort, and style, however, I would have to promote the .357 in multiplayer more than the crossbow, although with good prediction a bow headshot deals considerably more damage than a revolver round. As for single player choices - only underwater functionality and the need to conserve Magnum rounds really compels me to choose the crossbow. If you prefer to stay unnoticed, though, then it's stealthy attributes will serve you well. ------------------------ 2. Is it me, or are gargantuas bulletproof? Yes. Use explosives - MP-5 grenades, RPG shells, or even if pushed trip mines to kill them. The Garg in Surface Tension is supposed to be killed by airstrike, by the way, before you go wasting good munitions on him. Likewise, 'Power up' involves frying one with a bolt of electricity. ------------------------ 3. My rocket just swerved out of my control! What's going on? Read the section on the RPG - rockets can be 'distracted', so to speak, by the laser painters of other players. ------------------------ 4. I used the Egon gun, but all that came out was a stream of bubbles! / I played a multiplayer game, and weapons didn't act as you described as at all! Why is this? Certain modifications for half-life radically alter weapon functions. 'Bubblemod', for example, turns the Egon gun into a bubble generator, that either boosts oxygen supplies underwater, or (secondary mode) can be charged for an area-effect healing wave. Pay attention to the 'games' column in the server list and any mention of active modifications in either the server title or welcome messages. Modifications are varied, and are implemented differently on individual servers, so pay attention to the information provided by the host. ------------------------ 5. I'm sure the tau cannon used to be more powerful. Has it been altered? Yes. The power of the secondary fire blast was reduced after the version 188.8.131.52 . However, blind firing a secondary charge into cover can still deal significant damage, and primary fire remains unchanged. ------------------------ 6. What do you recommend using against Gonarch? Tactics vary. Some chuck satchel charges in its way and detonate as it scuttles over, others lay trip mines to achieve something similar. When Gonarch isn't running to the next stage of the level, blast its egg sac with either a charged tau shot or the revolver. Some prefer laying into it with the MP-5, firing grenades when Gonarch gets near, or when baby headcrabs become too tricky. The RPG is a nice choice for the big momma herself, you should be able to hit Gonarch's weak point dead on without too much hasle. The baby headcrabs are tricky to kill - you can either spray with the assault rifle (ineffective), dispatch them with constant crowbar thrashing as they close in (this does tend to draw your attention away from Gonarch herself, though), pick them off with the glock or spam them with the hivehand's primary fire. See a full walkthrough for more details. ------------------------ 7. What are the high-definition pack weapon models, and did the upgrade involve any changes to weapon functionality? Answer: In case you didn't know, the high-definition pack (sometimes referred to as the 'HD Pack') was a half-life upgrade that replaced various items of content, especially models used in the game. Better enemy models and weapon models, more specifically. It was originally provided with the Blue Shift expansion pack. Anyway, the alterations were aesthetic only, and did not change the statistics or operation of firearms in any way. The only noticeable changes are an alteration to the pistol (now sporting the looks of a Beretta M92F), the shotgun (apparently now a SPAS 12), and the MP-5 has now become an M4 assault rifle. They sound nicer too, but that's about it. ------------------------ 8. You advised to never use ______ in circumstances such as _______, but I think it's the best tool for the job! This guide, whilst to my knowledge compiled to the highest standards of accuracy, is nevertheless tainted by my own subjective opinion, such is the nature of its content (specifically, recommended usages). I call it a 'guide' for a reason: it advises and proposes reasons for its instructions, it does not stand, nor is intended to be read as, a series of absolute, arbitrary instructions. Ultimately, you have to use weapons according to the strategies and gameplay style you find most comfortable. Besides, a good player knows how to adapt each weapon to practically any circumstance. Get used to thinking on your feet how best to apply limited resources, such as ammunition. ------------------------ 9. Which is the best weapon to carry around by default in the single player campaign? Probably the submachinegun. Primary fire deals with most medium-range threats, and the grenades deal with large groups or any nasty surprises. In closer quarters, I'd equip the shotgun, at range, I'd keep the revolver at my side. Of course, different situations call for radically different measures - you'd be better looking at my account of recommended usages for each weapon than stubbornly sticking it out with a particular piece of equipment. ------------------------ 10. The game manual describes 'augmentations' for various weapons. I don't see any listed here. The game sports none. Whether this was a feature removed at the last minute or not is open to speculation, as is the nature of the proposed alterations. It's always possible that the multiplayer-exclusive Colt scope was to be picked up at some point in the single player campaign, but was dropped for fears that it would render the crossbow redundant. Who knows. ------------------------ Contacting me [cme] ------------------------ I can be emailed at jbreckmckye@hotmai l.co.uk (without the space in the middle of the address - that's just there to confuse spambots). I'm willing to answer any question that doesn't appear in the guide, if I have the time, but I do not provide either walkthrough information or cheat codes. Nor do I listen to anything incomprehensible or anything wRiTtEn LiKe ThIs or punctuated by 'lolllz!!!' or 'roflmao!!???!!' etc., so you have been warned. I also go under the name 'Bosola' on some forums. ------------------------ Version history [ver] ------------------------ June 2008 - version 1.0 -- completed first iteration of guide. -- May insert more detail into 'weapon locations' section at a future date. ------------------------ Credits [cts] ------------------------ Credits to... * vALVE, for developing this fantastic game * The Planet Half Life wiki for providing data on weapon damage values (see http://phlad.planethalflife.gamespy.com/wiki/index.php/Half-Life_weapons) at time of writing. * Myself, for writing it ;) * And you, for taking the time to read my guide. Copyright (C) 2008 Jimmy Breck-McKye.
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< back
to Quotes from Women, Power & Peace
Williams,with Mairead Corrigan
Maguire, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
in 1976 for their work to bring peace to
Northern Ireland. She says, "The Nobel Peace Prize
is not awarded for what one has done, but
hopefully what one will do." In the 31 years
since receiving the award, Williams has devoted
her life to relieving the suffering of the
world's children. She founded the Global
Children's Studies Center in 1992.
This evolved into founding the World Centers
of Compassion for Children International
in 1997, in honor of His Holiness the Dalai
Lama, who serves on the advisory board. www.centersofcompassion.org
believe we have to be as dedicated to the cause
of peace, as any army would be to the cause
of war.
Dalai Lama and I have many good laughs together – he's
a scream, he loves a good laugh! …That's
one thing in peace work which I think is absolutely
essential – you have to have a sense
of humor….We see suffering beyond belief,
and you take it to bed it with you...and if
I didn't have a sense of humor, I don't
think I'd survive this, you know?
the violence going on in the world in the
name of the religion] I'm sure
it's got nothing to do with God, you
know? If we're trying to talk about
God, get the name God out of war! It doesn't
belong there!…
says clearly and distinctly, "Thou shalt
not kill." Have any of you ever found
any "ie"s in there?
love to see a woman in office in the United
States of America. However, the term woman
comes first. Not one of the boys. I think Hillary
has to remove herself from being one of the
boys. And that's the message you're
going to have to give her. To me, to stand
for what's right – it doesn't
matter if she loses the election or not.
she will have much more of chance of winning
the election if she stands up in the name of
womanhood and says "I'm going to
change my country for the better" Because
you know something? On 9/11, the day that will
go down in infamy, in New York City, when 3,000
people lost their lives, on that same day,
35,615 children died in our world from conditions
of malnutrition, and nobody said a word. Hillary
Clinton should be addressing the issues of
14 million hungry children in the United States
of America.
you really are an American, take your country
universities, particularly in the United States,
we turn out products, not whole human beings,
and part of the job we all have to do, is to
change that. I actually think there should
be departments of peace studies in every university.
try to center myself to do the best job that
I can for the work that I do, for the women
that I love, and the children that we're
going to change the world for.
me tell you something girls – you are
going to have to stop knifing each other in
the back. Women are terrible with that!
really doesn't matter how little you
do, because small can and is beautiful. As
Jody said yesterday, even if you only give
one hour a month to a cause, it's one
hour a month you're not doing now.
I don't think I'm any more important
than any other woman in this room, but the
one thing that we do have connected, is the
womb thing. It's a womb thing. We have
got to protect the fruit of the womb. I figure
if God had wanted men to procreate she would
have gave him a womb wouldn't she?
little act of kindness, every little act of
justice, and every little act of love, never
goes amiss. Never ever.
am working with a few scientists in Italy,
and we are going to highlight and shame scientists
who get involved in the work of death and destruction.
get a lot of hugs. I need this kind of sustenance.
And I certainly need to know when I leave a
place like this and I'm on my own again,
that I have women like you who are with me,
both in my heart, and my spirit, and most definitely
in my head – that's what gives
me hope.
Interview with Betty Williams
Interview with Betty Williams
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Rumors say - starting in 2018 they will begin removing the Speedway for the Tron Lightcycles from Shanghai. This will probably be formally announced this weekend at D23.
I can't help but think this could have gone somewhere more effective. The ride itself looks cool but I think it's a shame to destroy an attraction to put in a new one. And if Tomorrowland needs a refresh, why not start with Stitch or Monsters Inc instead?
Anyway, get your rides on the Speedway now kids. No more driving for you (at least on the east coast!)


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The Earth Summit
The Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro was unprecedented for a UN conference, in terms of both its size and the scope of its concerns. Twenty years after the first global environment conference, the UN sought to help Governments rethink economic development and find ways to halt the destruction of irreplaceable natural resources and pollution of the planet. Hundreds of thousands of people from all walks of life were drawn into the Rio process. They persuaded their leaders to go to Rio and join other nations in making the difficult decisions needed to ensure a healthy planet for generations to come.
The Summits message that nothing less than a transformation of our attitudes and behaviour would bring about the necessary changes was transmitted by almost 10,000 on-site journalists and heard by millions around the world. The message reflected the complexity of the problems facing us: that poverty as well as excessive consumption by affluent populations place damaging stress on the environment. Governments recognized the need to redirect international and national plans and policies to ensure that all economic decisions fully took into account any environmental impact. And the message has produced results, making eco-efficiency a guiding principle for business and governments alike.
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At its heart, management isn't science; it's instinct, conviction, a feel for the shrewd trade -- and it happens on the fly. Just watch Eyal Balle
T he shoe. It all started when Kellee McCormack glimpsed a pair of shoes worn by a fellow shopper in a store in West L.A. "I flipped over those shoes," she recalls. She stopped the woman wearing them and asked where they came from. Canvas with a rubber-capped toe, the shoes were made in France. They were called Palladiums, and they retailed for $100. McCormack was in the fashion business -- in jewelry. She had never seen anything like those shoes, and she knew she could sell them. She told her boyfriend, Eyal Balle, about them. They were no big deal, he said. A lot of people back in his native Israel wore shoes like that. And they didn't cost anywhere near $100.
That was a little over three years ago.
The company. "This started as a whim," Eyal Balle concedes, sitting in his fourth cramped and windowless warehouse in three years. He shares an office with McCormack, whose desk, no bigger than a nightstand, holds a Rolodex and a calendar. The national sales manager sits out in the warehouse, and his desk amounts to a shelf built into an alcove of shoe boxes.
Balle is again looking for more space.
His Los Angeles-based shoe company , Rebels, has fashioned that first glimpse of Palladiums into projected sales of $7 million this year. The line started with one style of a canvas women's shoe and mushroomed from there to include footwear for children. Rebels sells yellow-patent-leather shoes with clear-plastic soles. It sells ankle-height boots made of bright-red fake crocodile skin. Balle says some small-town retailers look at his shoes and ask, "What are these? Shoes from space?" But in industry lingo such edgy creations are deemed "fashion forward." Rebels counts such well -known department stores as Nordstrom's, Macy's, Burdine's, and Jacobson's among customers yearning to enter the right orbit.
The knack. Eyal Balle's success is built upon staying close to his customers and sticking to his knitting. Or maybe it isn't. It really doesn't matter. Rebels could be the purest expression of every hot management theory around, and Balle would still wonder why anyone would waste time describing business in those terms.
The big-money management gurus are great with fancy phrases, but business, as practiced by Balle, isn't about words. It's about instinct, feel, conviction. "You buy my shoes, you own them," he warns retailers when they sign on to carry Rebels. No returns allowed.
That raw bravado is a more potent business tool than any idea the excellence peddlers could hope to convey. Let the theoreticians grasp at paradigms as they shift this way or that; Balle's got too many shoes to sell and too little time. You've seen entrepreneurs like Balle, maybe even caught a glimpse of his brashness in yourself, back before you realized you had too much to lose . Call it doing business on instinct, guided by the thrill of a random pursuit that somehow leads to a specific goal.
Call it the knack.
Better yet, watch it in action: things happen because someone with a talent for making the right moves maneuvers from one deal to the next without a blueprint. Business schools don't teach the knack because it can't be codified, and besides, half the students would demand a tuition rebate. It's heresy. The risk-reward calculus happens in the head, not on a spreadsheet. Some people just come hardwired that way. "People ask me, 'What's next?' I don't know. All I know is you have to be creative," Balle says. "You have no choice but to keep maneuvering."
For him, maneuvering is a way of life. He first landed in Los Angeles in 1986, a 21-year-old two days out of the Israeli army, a veteran of the Lebanon war. Unable to afford USC, he enrolled at Santa Monica Community College, paying for tuition with five credit cards cosigned by a friend. He later landed a night job as a security guard, which gave him time to study -- until the owner of a nearby Indian restaurant asked him if he was interested in doing a little valet parking on the side. He could simply change jackets, depending on the job immediately at hand. The restaurant owner liked Balle and fed him free of charge after hours with the staff. "I had already seen a lot," Balle says, describing those early years. "I was in a hurry to get on with my life."
He still is.
The first order. If McCormack was so sure that she could sell those shoes, then Balle was game. In August 1993 they flew to an apparel show in New York City to see if anyone else shared their hunch. No one did.
Balle, who then worked as office manager for a private-investigation firm, called his office and announced he was taking a leave of absence. "It was an instant decision," he says, as if for him there could be any other kind. The next day he headed to Israel to track down a factory that could make the shoes he had in mind.
His sole contact in Israel was his father, a certified public accountant. Balle asked him if he had any clients who made shoes. No, his father replied, but I do know an insole maker. That generated a couple of leads but no deals. Balle then picked up a locally made shoe not unlike the Palladium, which bore the name and address of its maker, the Mahlis Industrial and Commercial Co. He went and knocked on its door.
Balle, now getting desperate, turned up the bravado a notch in the presence of owner Josef Mahlis. "Of course I played the big-shot type," he recalls. "I said that I represented a big corporate buyer in the United States and that I wanted an exclusive deal."
Balle regaled Mahlis with tales of how big the U.S. market was and how he was missing out on something special. "You see," says Balle in his fractured English, "I shifted the whole ball into their court."
Though Mahlis correctly saw Balle as unseasoned, Balle also struck him as a "serious man" who "does what he promises." Besides, says Mahlis, "we had been trying to open up the export market for the past few years."
Balle left Israel with an agreement for $45,000 worth of shoes, even though he didn't know what a size run was or how many shoes a container held. He put no money down on that first shipment. Mahlis Industrial has been in business for 30 years, and Rebels is already its largest customer.
The look. The strategy: produce a midpriced, high-quality shoe, not a cheap knockoff from the Far East. In the world of knock-off-or-get-knocked-off, Rebels is oriented toward Europe, not Asia. It contracts with one factory in Israel and three in Italy, where labor costs are higher, as is quality. Equally important, Europe is on fashion's leading edge.
"They have a very European look: heavy bottoms, lug soles. They're colorful. They translate well -- funky utility sneakers with chunky soles." That's how Andrea Hersh, head buyer for Chernin's Shoes, a Chicago-area chain of 13 shoe stores, describes Rebels shoes. Rebels, bright and whimsical, offer Hersh something else: vital "sell-through." The shoes move off the shelf.
Mothers buy their young daughters a pair and then start wondering if the line has something for them. Teen daughters come clomping home in a pair, and mothers ask, "Where did you get those?" One style of women's shoe three years ago has multiplied into more than 20 children's styles alone for Rebels, in multiple colors. (Rebels now sells about 40 styles of women's and children's shoes.) There are boots and sandals. Boys' shoes are coming this fall.
Balle and McCormack now travel to shoe shows in Europe twice a year to see what's hot -- right now it's flowers and animal prints, as in leopards and zebras -- on the theory that styles emerging there today will be au courant in Los Angeles and New York next year. That way, they get a jump on the U.S. market. They have a designer in Italy who regularly cruises the shows. If he sees something, he faxes a sketch over. If Balle and McCormack like it, they fax it to their manufacturers in Israel or Italy. Within a few weeks Rebels has samples to show customers. In six weeks the company can have shoes in the stores.
First step. Balle came back from Israel with a sample pair of the shoes, women's size 7. McCormack slipped them on and began making the rounds of local boutiques. "I knew I could sell these off my feet," she says. Adds Balle, "The look was just emerging from Europe. It was a look everyone was starting to chase. And we had the product."
By the time the first shipment arrived, six weeks later, in November 1993, McCormack had the shoes sold. They retailed for $35 a pair, well under the pricey $100 Palladiums. Rebels first went after local boutiques, where McCormack had connections. Boutiques, she says, see shoes as a fashion accessory, so one style will do. Shoe stores and department stores expect a line of shoes, which Rebels lacked. Balle and McCormack had one style of shoe, and it came in three colors: black, white, and natural. Recalls McCormack, "I suffered a lot of rejection trying to sell jewelry to these stores, but with the shoes that never happened."
Earthquake. The business started in Balle's bedroom. It soon marched into the living room and from there invaded the garage. "The car went out on the street, and the shoes went into the garage," says Balle. UPS started making regular deliveries, which "stressed" Balle's landlady. This is a quiet neighborhood, she told him. It was time to move.
But Balle was cautious. He sensed that getting overextended could kill a promising start-up. And besides, he had no idea if Rebels was a promising start-up.
"I was still hesitating; this didn't feel right," he recalls. "I didn't want to commit to a warehouse. This was a fashion item we were selling, and fashions change all the time." Warehouse owners wanted five-year leases.
He settled on Public Storage as his landlord. Conveniently, lockers there rented monthly, but there was no phone. In a good month Balle could rent two lockers. When things slowed down, he could cut back to one.
Soon there were more and bigger trucks, 18-wheelers pulling up to the Public Storage lockers. Balle and McCormack usually figured someone was moving a household from across the country. Then the door would open, revealing a wall of shoe boxes needing to be unloaded.
The locker grew so full that only the svelte McCormack could wriggle her way to the back with a flashlight to fish out a couple of size 6's for that little boutique out in Pasadena. When the big earthquake hit in January 1994, the locker was packed so tightly, nothing moved.
The odd couple. In his wire-rimmed glasses, Balle looks vaguely owlish. A shock of dark hair and Groucho-like eyebrows frame his face. He is wryer than he realizes, with his off-center syntax. "If you don't like to swim with sharks, then don't go to the water," he will say. Nothing seems to faze him, perhaps owing to his service in the Lebanon war, an experience he describes as "guerrillas popping out of bushes."
McCormack is blond, with chiseled cheekbones and almond eyes. Some people passing her on the street doubtless do a memory scan for a recent Hollywood film. It's an odd duo, an inscrutable relationship. Boyfriend, girlfriend. But separate apartments. Opposites attracting. Design and accounting. The look and the hustle. His is a hardscrabble immigrant's story. She's from the Valley.
Maybe what binds them together is the knack -- the rush from selling all those shoes. They often work until 8 or 9 at night. Meals seem an afterthought, interludes between faxes to Italy or Israel. Each afternoon in those early days they jammed shoes into the rear of McCormack's two-door Volvo. (If packed just right, it would take 17 cases.) They made deliveries, arriving breathless at the local boutiques after fighting freeway traffic. The final stop was always at UPS to drop off out-of-town shipments minutes before the doors closed at 6 p.m. "We would beg them to let us in," McCormack recalls. The woman behind the counter had gotten used to Balle and McCormack's straggling in late, looking beat. Finally, one day she suggested, "Why don't you open an account? You know we do pick up."
Balle and McCormack looked at each other, startled by this smack-on-the-forehead revelation. "That's how little we knew," says McCormack. "We didn't know UPS picked up. We just thought they delivered."
Bagging Nordstrom's. Balle and McCormack can act cooler now. On a breezy spring day, with the sky a milky Mediterranean blue, Balle eases his shiny late-model foreign car into a parking space amid a sea of other equally shiny expensive-looking cars. The Nordstrom's West Side Pavilion store in Los Angeles rises like the facade of a cathedral.
Balle and McCormack head for the front door, which opens into the women's shoe department. No Rebels here. "This store had a change in buyers, and we had a problem," says McCormack. Translation: Nordstrom's makes buying decisions on a store-by-store basis. If a buyer leaves, you have to sell to the replacement.
"Look, Kellee, flowers." Balle is pointing out a coming trend -- flowers on shoes. That worries him. He thought he had a jump on that via Europe and the faxes from Rebels' Italian designer, Luciano Tiramani.
McCormack picks up a shoe and examines its sole. "I think Luciano has some explaining to do," she says. "We wanted that bottom, and they said they couldn't do it. But there it is. That makes me mad."
Balle and McCormack ride the escalator up to the children's shoe department to visit the buyer, who happens to be out. The clerk eyes them suspiciously as Balle pulls a Rebels shoe off the rear of a display table and places it front and center. He complains about the clutter, implying that other brands shouldn't be crowding his out.
"You're not doing it right," says McCormack. She nudges him aside. "Let me do it." He defers to her. Turning his attention to a competitor's shoe, Balle notes an obvious flaw -- something he learned early on. You don't put grommets on a kid's shoe. They can easily rip upholstery when worn by an energetic child scrambling over a sofa.
In a sense, Balle and McCormack are returning to the scene of the original caper. When Balle first set out to sell Nordstrom's, he simply showed up unannounced at this store and asked for the head buyer. "I had the shoes in a bag," he says. He figured if he called and made an appointment, he'd get the brush-off. "We had what they wanted," Balle recalls. "The buyer had just gotten back from Europe and had seen those shoes."
Nordstrom's is now Rebels' largest customer, accounting for 15% of sales. Rebels has a sales representative devoted exclusively to servicing Nordstrom's stores in Southern California. Nordstrom's returns the special treatment. It recently invited Balle and McCormack to Chicago to host an in-store promotion at one of its stores there. On that weekend trip, between Nordstrom's and the Chernin's chain, they wrote orders for more than $100,000 worth of shoes.
Reflecting on that big score, McCormack marvels at Balle's bravado. "He has a certain charm with these buyers," she says. "He talks to them like they're his friends. He says to them, 'You should have these shoes.' Eyal goes beyond proper etiquette." He doesn't disagree, but then etiquette is no match for the knack. "If I had been there a few more days, I could have sold twice as much," he says.
L.A. Story, Part I. After a few months of doubling as a security guard and valet-parking attendant, Balle had decided it was time to buy a car. He bought a used Ford Maverick for $500. One of his fellow security guards, another immigrant, admired it and said he was looking for a car himself. Is that right? Balle asked, telling him he had paid $1,000 but would let the car go for $750. "Hey, this is pretty good," Balle recalls thinking. "I make a week's salary in 10 minutes."
Balle was now in the used-car business. He favored older, high-mileage cars, which he would immediately get painted at Earl Scheib's for $99. His customers, many newly arrived in the United States, mainly wanted cars that looked good. Whenever he placed ads for the cars, Balle added two words: "Call Claudia." (Claudia was Balle's roommate at the time.)
That brought interested buyers of the male persuasion swarming. They'd call and arrange a rendezvous to see the car, only to be greeted at the door by Balle. "So sorry, you just missed Claudia," he'd say consolingly. "She had to run out to an appointment, but she left me all the information on the car. I can help you."
Shoe shows. The best way to get the word out was to go to shoe shows. Rebels' first was in Las Vegas in February 1994. Many companies there easily spent $10,000 prettifying their booths. Balle and McCormack spent $50. Knowing that many buyers were Jewish, Balle erected a simple banner that read: "Rebels are here. Shoes made in Israel."
He and McCormack then dumped a few large bags of sand on the floor, aiming to create a pseudodesert scene with the shoes half buried in the sand. They intended to invoke the spirit of the Israeli army, whose soldiers wore a similar style of shoe, and which, notes Balle, "has a strong reputation."
For their next show they bought a fish tank and a dozen goldfish and suspended a new line of shoes called Jellyfish in the tank. That cost $100. Some people placed orders. Others wanted to get in touch with Rebels' designer.
Something for nothing. Balle never signed a long-term lease for warehouse space, preferring to pay an extra $100 a month for the right to break his lease. It proved a wise move, since Rebels is about to move into its fifth warehouse in three years.
But the company's makeshift look -- six people crammed into two offices -- is deceptive. Rebels now has a national sales manager and 13 sales representatives. Balle and McCormack began building the sales force with people she knew through the jewelry trade but then kept upgrading it as they made new contacts in the shoe business.
Their strategy is to get good people who have had to jump out of flaming companies, thereby learning from bitter experience. Balle likes people who have been tested. Four of Rebels' sales reps came over from Keds, a once-proud but now-faltering division of Stride Rite.
Rebels' national sales manager, Ralph Hulit, and another four sales reps came from L.A. Gear, which tumbled into trouble in the early 1990s after getting hooked on the thin-margin deep-discount market and burning its mainstay department-store sources. Margins collapsed, as did sales, falling from a peak of $900 million to $300 million in three years. One Rebels sales rep, Rich Tremalio, dubs Rebels a "baby L.A. Gear," which, all things considered, may not be the highest compliment.
Balle is sharp at digging up talent at a below-market price. Rebels' designer, Luciano Tiramani, worked for two other companies in Europe. Balle found him when he went to a shoe show in Germany while actually looking for someone who could do quality control. Tiramani now serves both functions for Rebels.
Balle engaged a young designer, Mary Perez, to create a corporate identity for Rebels -- and paid her in shoes. About their barter, Perez concedes, "I hope it moves beyond that," but then adds, "I'd really like to see my logo on every billboard in town. So for now, the shoes will do."
One day Balle opened the back door of the warehouse to find a photographer and his crew shooting an elaborate beach scene. When they broke for lunch, Balle asked if the photographer wouldn't mind snapping a few pictures of Rebels shoes for promotional purposes. The crew looked at Balle in disbelief -- and acceded to his request.
He now trades shoes for photos with the photographer, Dana Abrams, who has done shoots for a number of national accounts. "One of these days I'm going to give him a bill, and he'll fall over," says Abrams wearily.
L.A. Story, Part II. Stuck in traffic somewhere in Beverly Hills, Balle is getting impatient. He wonders out loud if he should take the first or second left up ahead, depending on how many cars are waiting to turn at each light. As he turns at the first light McCormack scans the street, which looks vaguely familiar, and says, "Is my new apartment somewhere around here?"
The life -- beyond shoes -- of these just-thirty-somethings is Rebels and restaurants. They eat out a lot, and from the conversation it's unclear if they even own pots and pans. (McCormack does have a cat.) Balle lives in the guest house of a woman in Beverly Hills, where the rent is low. He had a lease on a condominium in Santa Monica and to break it spun a sob story to the landlord about how a relative had died back in Israel and he had to go home.
Scenes from a mall. It's midday in the mall at Beverly Hills, and sunlight filtering through the roof throws a gauzy air over the scene of shoppers drifting across hard, polished floors. Balle and McCormack dip into a branch of Brooks' Shoes for Kids, a local chain of children's shoe stores, to see what the competition is peddling. Clear-plastic sandals (called "jellies"), they note, are all but spent after three years of ascending popularity and declining margins. So, too, are red-patent-leather boots. Balle and McCormack have already blown those items out of their warehouse.
The store is quiet, but another shoe store directly across the hall with big "Sale" signs in the window is bustling. "Look how busy they are," Balle remarks. "They just knock other people off."
As they pass a women's clothing store Balle instructs, "Kellee, see the colors. Very soft." This is a preview of the coming colors in shoes: airy yellows, greens, and oranges. They now stroll past another shoe store.
"This company knocked us off completely," says Balle. "One for one." He shrugs.
McCormack is more exercised. "They took our high top and low top. Sick, huh?" Balle adds: "This company went to our factory. They said the production was going to a local store. They bought the shoes and diverted them to the United States." He immediately cut that factory off.
This little stroll through the mall encapsulates the challenge for an upstart like Rebels. On one hand, Balle and McCormack need to nurture and protect the small accounts like Brooks'. It was the little guys who gave them their early breaks, after all. But they must also heed the siren song of bigger accounts that can assure them of volume and growth. Making matters even stickier, they must avoid getting squashed when the department stores and discounters collide.
Department stores hate discounters because they knock off hot-selling products and undercut them on price. That message is conveyed in code to vendors like Rebels. Says Balle: "They don't say, 'Don't sell to them.' They say, 'We don't like your distribution.' " Translation: If you sell to discounters, we'll cut you off at the knees.
Rebels fears discounters, too, because if the company doesn't do business with them, then they'll just knock off Rebels' shoes. "Discounters only want you because you're in the good stores," says Balle. "But you need to commit to a certain amount of production, and discounters help you meet the minimum."
For now he has sworn off dealing with discounters. When they call, Balle's end of the conversation usually goes something like this: "So when do you want the shoes? One month? Oh, too bad. My factory's backed up. Maybe I can get them for you in four months."
"We can't go wild." Rebels is now hot, and more partner wanna-bes are circling. Steve Vianest, who owns a shoe store in Boca Raton, says, "We'll try to do a Rebels 'concept' store. We'll sell accessories and the shoes. I'll be involved with that."
Balle's not so sure. "We have to focus right now on the shoes," he says. "We can't go wild." The Gap invited Balle and McCormack up to San Francisco to talk. Balle was wary. "Big companies find a way to bypass their suppliers," he explains.
But then, after the big $100,000 weekend with Nordstrom's in Chicago, Balle allows himself to dream a little. This year's volume is three times greater than last year's. With a sales rep in Chicago, he could quickly turn that into a $1-million territory. "I see us going to $20 million, $50 million even," Balle offers.
Balle, the entrepreneur who barters for black-and-white photos, is now talking about putting in a $50,000 state-of-the-art inventory-management system. He rationalizes that by saying the software could support $100 million in sales. As the numbers get bigger the shoes seem to matter less.
Balle acknowledges that. "This is first and foremost a business," he says. "Profit and loss. The bottom line. I'm not just a kid who loves shoes."
The shoe. After a late dinner at a Chinese restaurant, Balle and McCormack stroll around Rodeo Drive, scanning the gleaming storefront windows for signs of fashion spring. More oranges, yellows, and limes. Flowers and animal prints, trends Rebels has already picked up, look like hot motifs. The street is oddly dead, more like a midwestern town where people have to get up early and go to work in the morning.
Steve Vianest says, "There are a lot of monsters in the shoe business." Balle, whom he counts as a fresh face, is not one. Roger Brooks, owner of Brooks' Shoes for Kids, once invited Balle and McCormack to his house for dinner. Recalls McCormack: "He told us, 'I like you people. I trust you.' "
Balle had noted earlier: "Many people have told us, 'You have an item that sells well. You're so young. Get out when you can.' " Right now that doesn't register with him. He might as well stop breathing.
Balle and McCormack now turn a corner off Rodeo Drive and stare into one more shop window. This one is dark and lifeless, but one can readily see a large banner announcing a sale, blaring distress. On sale are shoes unceremoniously displayed on floor-to-ceiling metal racks.
They're Palladiums.
Senior writer Ed Welles can be reached at firstname.lastname@example.com


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Fisher & Paykel's Freestanding Range Cookers are the showpiece of the kitchen and deliver outstanding performance. These are the domestic version of the professional chef's cooker, not only looking like they've come from a restaurant kitchen but also delivering similarly high performance.
Check with your local retailer for pricing, availability and stock of this model. The product dimensions and specifications in this page apply to the specific product and model. Under our policy of continuous improvement, these dimensions and specifications may change at any time. You should therefore check with your retailer or Fisher & Paykel's Customer Care Centre to ensure this page correctly describes the model currently available.


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Everyone wishes they could rub elbows with the rich and famous. Unfortunately, we can't all be so privileged. Lucky for you, there are a lot of doppelgangers out there and they're making their living paying tribute to the stars. From the popular Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe to the more obscure Dog the Bounty Hunter and L.L. Cool J, there are impersonators for almost any celebrity you can dream up. Tell your guests to have their cameras ready so they don't miss a single photo opportunity with celebrity impersonators at your event!
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Want your guests to mingle with Cher? How about having Michael Jackson show up during a dinner party and perform "Beat It"? Would that lucky guy be surprised with a special "Happy Birthday" song by the one and only Marilyn Monroe? You can make all of these happen when you hire a celebrity impersonator! Impersonators are a great choice for any type of a event. They can mix and mingle with your guests taking pictures and signing autographs. Or you can hire an impersonator to put on a full show. A celebrity impersonator known for their comedy can do stand-up and/or act as emcee your event. Or, you can hire an singing impersonator to perform a stage show with singing and dancing, either to track or with a full band. Browse through Impersonators on GigSalad. Watch videos, listen to audio, check out photo galleries, and read reviews to ensure you book exactly what you want for your special event.
Impersonators are similar to look-alikes and tribute artists, but are not exactly the same. Most impersonators provide the triple threat of uncanny looks, mannerisms, and voice. Performers who call themselves look-alikes, however, are typically celebrity doubles that do not perform and just visually look like the star they imitate. Tribute artists may not have the look, but their act aims more at paying tribute to the songs and music of the original artist or celebrity.
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Last May on Lilac Sunday, the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University introduced visitors and online audiences to two mobile applications for mapping and sharing information on the Arboretum's living plant collections—Mobile Interactive Map (MIM) and Arboretum Navigator. Following a year of rigorous testing and evaluation, the Arboretum has combined the best attributes of both in a single application, Arboretum Explorer. Set for launch on May 12 as part of this year's Lilac Sunday celebrations, Arboretum Explorer represents the latest advance in the Arboretum's historical commitment to expanding access to its collections for science, learning, and recreation.
All of the more than 15,000 accessioned plants at the Arnold Arboretum are mapped, recorded, and tracked digitally with the help of a collections database, BG-BASE. Arboretum Explorer allows users to tap into this information by harnessing the GIS (geographic information system) capabilities of their mobile phones and tablets to locate and identify specific plants in the landscape. Arboretum Explorer also significantly enhances how visitors interact with plants they encounter in the collection, from taking self-guided tours to finding information on Tree Mobs and sharing plants on social media.
"As stewards of one of the world's most important living collections of plants, our charge is to do everything we can to share information and insight into our extraordinary trees, shrubs, and vines," said Director William (Ned) Friedman. "It's a big part of what has made the Arboretum a hugely valuable resource to school children, the visiting public, and scientists from around the globe. We are committed to pushing the digital frontiers that connect people to our plants and promote greater interactions with biodiversity."
Try out Arboretum Explorer on your mobile device this Lilac Sunday, at home, or on your next Arnold Arboretum visit. The Arboretum requests continued feedback from users to help identify new features and guide the engineering of future releases.


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Selena Gomez Offended Over Remarks Radio DJ Did Not Say
There is drama brewing in Selena Gomez's world, and turns out it's over a giant misunderstanding and a communication breakdown. National radio personality DJ Kidd Kraddick inspired Gomez's ire (and that of her boyfriend Justin Bieber) over comments he allegedly made about the news that Gomez's mother is pregnant.
Sel happily revealed the pregnancy news last week, and earlier today, it got back to the singer that Kidd, who comments on celebs on his show, said something to the effect wishing a miscarriage or abortion on her mother.
Whoa! The teen took to Twitter to address the comments in a tweet that has since been deleted. She had tweeted (courtesy of Oh No They Didn't) : "Kidd I used to look up to you. Talk about me all you want but my mom or my family is crossing the line."
Her BF The Biebs also issued his own disapproving tweet, which read: "Smooth kid. Real smooth. Smh." That tweet has also been deleted from The Biebs' heavily followed feed, as well.
The audio of Kidd talking about the news is below. He and his crew joke about it being weird that Selena is 20 — she's actually 19 — and having a pregnant mother. They speculate about her age and discuss how women are having babies later in life and how it has to be odd to have a 19-year difference with your sibling.
Later in the show, Kraddick's female sidekick joked that Selena's mom is actually doing a cover up and that it's Selena who is pregnant and will claim she needs rest after her tour and thus disappear from public in order to give birth under the guise of her mom being preggers.
While some of those comments were a bit tasteless, they certainly didn't reference miscarriage or abortion. Kraddick himself tweeted: "@selenagomez Never said one word about a miscarriage, abortion, or anything of the kind. It's completely made up."
Looks like Gomez and The Biebs may have reacted a bit quickly in this case.
Listen to Kidd Kraddick Talk About Selena Gomez


text: Download and Enjoy with Black Stickers for iMessage. Tips of installing stickers: • To access Messages apps, compose a new Messages to a friend and tap the Messages App Store icon. • Tap the four oval icon on the lower left corner to open the app drawer. From there, tap the plus icon ( '+') to access the Messages App Store. • In the App Store, tap the Manage tab to add and see your apps to your app drawer. How to use stickers: • Open iMessage from your iPhone • Select the your app's sticker • Just with a single tap send stickers • Layer stickers over each other in conversations • Scale & Rotate stickers by using a second finger before you place it on a bubble.


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After This Video, You'll Never Pour Cooked Pasta Through A Colander Again
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Get The Best Texture From Your Pasta
October 19, 2017
Pasta is a classic. Whether spaghetti, penne or ravioli, few homes go more than a week without a pasta dish. According to the International Pasta Organisation, over 13 million tons of pasta are produced every year around the world. As you might guess, Italy ranks highest in pasta production and consumption per capita, but the United States is second in production at 2 million tons, and highest overall consumption at 2.7 million tons. That amounts to 63 servings of pasta a year per person.
With so much pasta being eaten, shouldn't we know how to cook it right? I've been taught so many tips on how to make pasta to have the right texture, but this video debunks them all. Now I finally know the secret behind that perfect restaurant quality texture and flavor that I just haven't been able to capture. I can't wait to try this for dinner tonight.
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Watch Pretty Little Liars Season 7 Episode 15 S07E15 "In the Eye Abides the Heart" Online Promo: Here is the promo for the 15th episode of Pretty Little Liars season 7 entitled "In the Eye Abides the Heart". we see in this episode, a PLL is blackmailed by A.D. into helping her nemesis. After being blackmailed by A.D., one of ...Read More »
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It completely eliminates layout time; you are left only with drilling and finishing time. The 14" x 3-3/4" layout is designed to make a cribbage board for use by 2, 3, or 4 players; you add border trim to this.
The best way to use the template is to center it on your stock, put thumb tacks in four hole positions, one near each corner and then mark all the other hole centers with an awl. Then when you drill, the awl mark will automatically center the tip of your brad-point drill for a very professional-looking job.
The metal cribbage pegs are solid brass, black oxide steel, or nickel plated. Tip tapers from 0.100" to 0.180" and fits into a 1/8" dia. hole. The hardwood pegs can be stained or painted.