These same people are usually the same ones who bite off hard on the $7/cup Starbucks “culture”, so I guess it’s just a matter of perspective.

As a fan of Apple products, some of the arguments I deal with are (in no particular order)

• The uninformed “Macs cost twice as much as PC’s“, aka the “mac penalty” argument (pricing),
• The “I don’t know anything about the mac, but we use Office at work and I need Windows” (aka. “compatibility is an issue”) argument,
• The “why would I buy a Mac when I can buy a $2 Gateway/Dell box” argument (a subtly different argument than the “mac penalty” argument) and finally
• The somewhat lazy “I already know Windows and I’m too old to care about changing” argument.

Each of these arguments against the Mac have valid points depending on each individual and their own independent needs, but each argument is usually easily defeated *if* you can actually get the person to actually sit down and play with OS X for 10 minutes.

• (Mac Penalty Argument) Compare a MacBook Pro to a Dell Adamo or Sony top end comparable and the MacBook is in the same ball park, plus you can do more with the Mac right out of the box..
• (compatibility argument) Mac OS X has “Office for the Mac” and 99% of PC users will never miss any “compatibility” with the PC.
• (The “$2 Gateway” argument) True, you can also buy a Ford Ranger pickup without Air Conditioning, but wouldn’t you rather have the Lexus?
• (The “I’m used to Windows” argument) Change is hard, but some change is worth its weight in gold.
  • (did you ever notice how you almost NEVER hear anyone say they actually LIKE Windows?)

Which brings me to my point…

Friday, I bought my new MacBook Pro into work.  More because I didn’t want to leave it in the car on a freezing day, but still.  As a co-worker came by, we sat and discussed the Mac and  I explained to him my reasons for becoming a Mac user in the first place, when he said something to me that I really couldn’t disagree with at all.

“I just don’t like Macs because of the Elitist attitude that Mac users all seem to have.  It’s like a cult or a virus or something.”

Wow…  “Bazinga!“  Straight to the heart of the matter.

I guess I’d never really thought about it before, being an enthusiastic convert from the PC, but feeling the way I do about Apple products, I can really see that I *do* tend to have somewhat of an elitist (mine is better than yours) attitude about the Mac.  Hmmm.. Come to think of it, so does almost every single Mac user I know…

I know the good Lord said “pride cometh before a fall” and all that.  I believe that’s true to some extent, because pride makes you blind to your surroundings.

That being said however, I can really understand why Mac users (as a whole, but not trying to generalize) tend to feel that their chosen platform is better than any other. (It is, but I digress)…  When my co-worker offered that opinion, I really thought about it and it dawned on me that I haven’t been this enthusiastic about ANY computer since the old Commodore Amiga platform in the 80’s.

• I picked up the Mac at a true low-point in my computing life when I had truly reached a breaking point with Microsoft products.
• Since my first iMac 4 years ago, Mac OS X really helps me — as a person — concentrate more on what I want to do than having to constantly worry about “how can I get Windows to do it?”
• In the first four years of owning my iMac, I never needed to upgrade it.  I never had the constant hardware/software issues of Windows, and — unlike Windows, I didn’t have to literally reload the system from scratch every 6 months due to something breaking.  Matter of fact, I *never* needed to rebuild the iMac in all the time I owned it.
• My iPhone has been singularly the most incredibly useful device I’ve ever owned
• My new MacBook Pro, similarly, allows me to “take my world with me” (since I literally cloned my iMac onto it)…

It’s easy to fall into the trap of pride in something when your experience is so “night and day” compared to the constant frustration, updates, and rebuilds of a Windows system, but I wonder whether this mass pride that we (Mac users) all feel isn’t — to some small extent — doing the platform a disservice?

After all, even though you “can lead a stubborn mule (Windows user) to a crystal clear stream, you can’t force him to drink the kool-aid“..  Ok, I’m paraphrasing, but you get the point.. right?

I wonder if the announcement for the iPad has had any effect on the sales of the MacBook and MacBook Pro laptops as a whole?

Whyzzat you ask??

Well Lucy, lemme ’splain..

There’s a group of people out there who were waiting on the new iPad.  We had all heard the rumors of “MacOS X on a tablet” and if a lot of people — like me — decided to wait it out to buy one, then we get into the world where MacBook Pro sales are negatively impacted.

However, that was last month.

I’m sure that some of those same people have now decided they can’t wait (or hate that the iPad doesn’t run a full OS) and have run out and purchased MacBooks.  If that’s the case, the MacBook sales should be positively impacted by the delay between announcement and release of the iPad.

Since the Macbook / MacBook Pro are Apple’s number one sellers on the computer side of the house, I really find myself curious as to how all of this is playing out.  Are there more Mac users waiting in earnest for the iPad, or have more of us turned to going ahead with a MacBook to meet our needs?

One thing’s for sure.  Apple sure are sneaky bastages when it comes to marketing, so anything’s possible.

If you have any ideas about my boggle above, leave me a comment and let’s discuss it.  I would really like to hear people’s opinions.

Wayne Hunt
segwayne.com

Ever since the dawn of the XM and Sirius radio business models, I’ve always asked myself, “why on Earth would anyone want to pay for radio?“.  After all, I had a six-mile commute to work, and you couldn’t take it inside with you and get a signal, so you’re essentially paying X amount per month to listen to the radio about 20 minutes a day.  I mean, what’s the deal?  I’ve already got a FREE radio, not to mention 16 Gigabytes of MP3’s on a USB stick connected to it.  If that gets old, I can even fire up Bluetooth on my iPhone and stream music straight from it so… What’s the big deal… right?

For a 10 minute commute every day, the logic above is fairly flawless.  Lately however, my weekly commute changed to about 3.5 hours each way, twice a week.  During which, I’m constantly searching for local radio stations on the way to and fro.  I’ve heard every song that I own on my USB stick until I’m pretty much ready to throw it away, and I’m bored to death about mile 47 of my 170 mile sojourn.

Enter the XM Skydock..

The XM Skydock is — in essence — an XM receiver that doubles as both an iPhone dock and charger.  As you can see by this picture, it plugs into the cigarette lighter, then the iPhone (or iPod touch) docks at the top of a semi-rigid stalk, allowing the interface software application to be in easy reach while driving.

In the Box..

When you first open the box, what you see is the receiver stalk.  There are also a couple of spacers for differing levels of iPod/iPhone cases, a manual, a quick start sheet, a channel guide for XM radio, an “AUX” cable to provide direct audio to capable players, and the magnetic antenna which is the most difficult part of the “easy” installation.

Installation…

The box describes the installation of this system as “simple and easy”.  For the most part, I agree, with one caveat.

1. plug in the stalk into a cigarette lighter
2. download the iphone/ipod app
3. Activate your service with XM radio
4. type in the UID/password into the app
5. set your radio to the correct channel (or plug in the provided AUX cable)
6. .. and finally, learn all about the magic of how to route the wiring of an externally mounted antenna — which looks like a baby “wall wart” charger — through your door’s weather stripping (without destroying it) then through the dash to hide the wires..

For step 6, most people of average intelligence will probably want to go ahead and hire out your local audio installer geek for help.  Better $20 to him than $200 to replace the weather strip and a mangled antenna.

Special consideration: When I first plugged up the system, I thought it would be a simple task to simply toss the antenna up on the dashboard and drive.  After all, the dash has an unobstructed view of the sky.. Right?  Apparently not..

Seems that — unlike FM radio — satellite radio is very, very “line of sight” between the antenna and the satellite itself.  If, for example, you find yourself driving East and the satellite is “behind you”, the antenna is easily blocked by the roof of your vehicle and you get music that fades in and out randomly as the signal is lost.  Better to go ahead and mount it outside to get a clear view and just be done with it.

The Software…

Downloading the Sirius/XM Skydock application is pretty straight forward, like any other free app store app,  Just make sure you get the Skydock app and not the streaming app, which won’t work with the skydock.  I may provide pictures later, but there are plenty on google.

The interface for the software is seemingly very intuitive although sometimes a bit hard to read at arm’s length.  You can change channels, search, get weather reports, and even “tag” music you hear for later downloads in iTunes (for those of you who do such things).  I have no real complaints about the interface, and it would have been far better than trying to use the built-in interface of my Pioneer DEH-6100BT deck at 70 miles per hour.

In the End

The Good

• The sound quality is amazing when connected through the AUX cable (as opposed to using the built-in FM tuner)
• The variety of music and programs seems pretty good
• It’s a fairly simple system to install, only the antenna may trip you up.
• You can actually listen to the same program while driving for more than 20 minutes (when normal FM stations start to fade quickly)
• You can keep up to 12 favorite channels, making it relatively easy to find something to listen to.
• The software can even prompt you when your favorite programs or tagged artists start playing.

The Bad

• Installing the antenna is not for the meek.
• If you have an older car, like I do, the weight of the iPhone sometimes causes the entire interface to “rotate” (or better to say “fall”) out of position when you hit bumps in the road.
• Bumps in the road shake the iPhone, making it sometimes appear unreadable — depending on how much your highway department sucks that is..
• For someone with big hands, it’s easy to hit the wrong button sometimes, especially if you’re not concentrating on reaching for the screen.
• Some iPhone cases, such as my Speck ruggedized will “fit” but it’s very, very tight — even with the dock arms fully opened.  I don’t however want to trade out the life-saving thick rubber case protection for anything that might not survive my unerring tendency to drop the phone on concrete.
• Sometimes if you don’t dock it “just right”, the screen lock will engage and turn off the screen (which I don’t want).  That however may be case related.

The Ugly

• “Commercial free” is total and utter bullspit.  Music channels aren’t bad, but any of the talk, news, or other channels spend seemingly 40% of the time with the same “buy gold”, “get out of credit card debt” crap that you get on standard radio.  6 minutes of Glenn Beck.  4 minutes of listening to some maxi-zoom-dweebie tell me how to make my penis larger.

The commercials themselves are ALMOST enough to make me want to cancel XM radio.  On the bright side, there’s always a music channel you can swap to during the incessant and neverending commercials.  I would almost be willing to pay another $5.00 a month just to get rid of them.  Almost.

Overall, I’m not sure how I feel about it, but most of my negative emotions are about the overzealous commercials playing every 5 minutes.  Otherwise, I was able to drive that 3.5 hours this weekend and never listen to the same thing twice.

Love “Blue Collar Comedy” radio.  Love the “classics” channel where they replay 30’s and 40’s radio shows.  Love the “80’s on 8″ channel and for the first time, I am able to listen to the entire Glenn Beck show from start to finish.  Whether that’s a good or bad thing, dunno yet. Your mileage may vary.

Hope this review helped.  If you have questions, please feel free to drop us a line below and I’ll do my best to answer them.

Wayne

For example, while I can fire up iMovie or Garageband, there simply isn’t enough power behind the Atom processor to actually DO anything beyond what a netbook’s good for.  No podcasting, no Photoshop, no WarCraft, no Call of Duty 4.

So.. That being said, and the histrionic issues caused by the sincerely apathetic speed of the Best Buy trade-in program behind me, I set out today with my $469 gift card, along with $30 in Best Buy member gift cards in hand, with the intent to purchase a new base-model MacBook Pro, 13″ laptop.  Let me just state, out-front that most of you simply cannot imagine the amount of thought that went into the decision.

Should I buy a base laptop?  Should I buy the bigger badder 15″ laptop?  Should I just buy a Mac Mini and a 20″ monitor and make plans to sell it back later?  Should I just tough it out and not get anything at all? (in which case, what would I have done with $500 in gift certificates???)  ARGGhhh.

It was actually the local Best Buy in Huntsville that talked me out of anything but the base setup.

Having decided at least on a laptop — to keep from having to haul a monitor around — I couldn’t decide on either a 13″ or base 15″ model.  Being most unhelpful and disinterested in helping a customer, after much frustration, I discovered the local store DIDN’T EVEN STOCK the model I wanted.

This of course called for the obligatory 200 mile road trip to the nearest Mac-selling Best Buy, which happened to be in Murphreesboro, TN.  It was a beautiful day, I had a moral imperative and I was “on a mission from God” (which for the cretins out there is a big tip of the hat to the Blues Brothers).

To cut a long and presumably boring story short, the people in the alien Best Buy in Murphreesboro were the exact opposite of my local shop.  They were helpful, attentive, and even had an honest-to-god Apple rep on hand to answer questions…

Now I just need to sell the Dell Hackintosh and the new baby will be a fairly inexpensive upgrade.

Here is the unboxing of what I ended up with;

The Box..

The box top

The box, open but unmolested

Cables and all the goodies

The software

The EULA sticker

The laptop with the protective "shipping popcorn" still covering the keyboard.

Houston... We have liftoff! (and a very happy Wayne)

Now, in the digital age with 200+ channels and on-screen guides, the ubiquitous magazine of the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s has seemingly disappeared without a trace.

This week, I’m trying an experiment which entails falling back to basic cable which — in my case — doesn’t seem to include an on-screen guide, so I’ve spent the last two days scouring 12 different grocery, book, and other stores to no avail.

In the digital world, I’m just as guilty as the next guy for forgetting about TVGuide, but can it possibly be that a true television landmark publication has disappeared from the face of the planet without so much as a whimper?

Rather than “live blog” the event, I thought I’d let it sink in, look at the device itself (http://www.apple.com/ipad), do a little research and come to a little calmer opinion than a lot of people I’ve read today suffering from knee-jerk reactions.

Why calmer?  Simply and unabashedly stated, I’m an Apple fanboy.

As such, like all of us fanboys out there waiting on the “miracle tablet” to save us from our droll existence, I proudly proclaimed that I’ve already been in line for day one of its release months before it was even acknowledged.

Now that the announcement has been made, I’m not quite so sure, and here’s why:

What it is:

• Essentially, it’s a 10″ iPod Touch, replete with the iPhone OS and access to the App store.
• 1 ghz Apple “A4″ low power processor
• Will be available in 6 models.  16, 32, and 64 Gigabyte Flash Drive models, and 3 matching models which add the ability to do 3G connections through an AT&T “pay as you go” plan.

What it isn’t.

• It is neither a laptop, nor an iPhone, nor even a netbook.  Whether Steve Job’s “something entirely different” (his words) is actually “better” is yet to be seen.
• It isn’t a laptop replacement in the true sense of the word, because you can’t load real software (like MS Office) on it to work from the road.

Why I’m on the fence…

As I said, I expected the iPad to be a game changer.  Instead what it looks like we got is a new iPod Touch on steroids.

Maybe THAT’s why they chose the “iPad” moniker which is easily confused with its baby brother, the “iPod” over other more appropriate names like “iSlate” or even “iTab”, but I digress.

Unlike the loads of pre-announcement speculation, it doesn’t run Mac OS X (or even a lite version), so you can’t use it for things like programming or anything that really requires real work level abilities.

That being said, I *love* my iPhone.  As such, I think I would actually get a bit of use out of a 10″ version of the same type features and apps (especially games).  In the end however, what keeps it from being a slam dunk game changing home run for me is the fact that it doesn’t have even a hint of a CAMERA on it.

Steve.. WTF were you thinking??!!!???

Whether or not you like Apple, or their products, the simple addition of a web cam / camera on the new tablet could have changed the world.  Imagine for a moment that they DID include one (*and just to be clear, they did not*).

To get an idea of why the lack of a camera on the iPad pisses me off SO much, simply imagine the following scenarios;

1. sitting in Starbucks on a Saturday morning, iPad in hand, videoconferencing via skype over the 3G network to your beloved family member in another state.
2. sitting on a park bench recording a video podcast segment on your iPad, then saving it to the Flash drive, then uploading it to the web via the public wifi hotspot.
3. an insurance adjuster able to use the camera to send pictures of crash damage to a custom app which automatically sends it to the insurance company for on-the-spot processing…
4. a medical specialist doctor using the camera to help fellow doctors in another part of the world without the need for thousands of dollars in video conferencing equipment.
5. being able to sit in the local Starbucks and participate in multi-user group meetings, even if you’re out of town on travel.

Before you say it, yes.  you’re absolutely right.  Each of these things could be easily accomplished by any of the MacBooks (though MacBooks don’t have access to the App store) already, so why not just buy a Macbook, shut up, and be happy?

Because.. Dammit…  For the first time, there will be a tablet computer on the market that could have made the difference, and it damned sure LOOKED like one of those “Star Trek tablets” we’ve been promised for 50 years now (thanks Gene Roddenberry!).

Instead, what we get is a device that might be interesting for what amounts to a 10″ iPod Touch.  It might not be.

It might be “yet another e-reader” with the App store built in, but sadly, due to the one, single stupid oversight in leaving out a camera, it will NEVER reach its full potential.

In the end..

As a self proclaimed fanboy, I find myself disappointed and will probably wait for “iPad 2G”.

I’ll spare you the details as most people — even though curious — get a bit “oogy” at the thought of a smushed finger.  What bothers me more is how badly the broken finger’s affecting my Call of Duty 4 stats.

Much like Zoolander, (at least in COD4) I can’t “turn left”.

So how did it fare?

Not so very long ago, when I was 327 pounds, I was — to say the least — a huge fan of pizza.  If not local, then certainly delivery pizza.  Domino’s was third on my quick dial, and was eaten probably once a week when I didn’t feel like bothering to get dressed and go out for Big Ed’s.

On the list of delivery or take out pizza, it was third:

1. Papa John’s
2. Little Caesar’s
3. Domino’s

In short, the “original” Dominos pizza was always bland.  It was doughy, and it tasted vaguely of cardboard.  Indeed, the only thing Domino’s pizza had going for it was that it was usually fast, most of the time hot, and usually — with the right coupons — it was cheap.

The delivery process

I *hate* having to try to explain my order over the phone.  It isn’t that people aren’t nice.  It’s just that I’m anti-social that way and find it much easier to click a mouse and have stuff delivered without any chance of “human mis-communication”.  Alas, Domino’s online ordering system was down today, as it often seems to be.  Today’s order, of which I’ve eaten two pieces (and will probably waste the rest), was indeed fast, taking about 17 minutes from order to door.  It was literally piping hot, because of the delivery time, which was great as well.

As for taste…

The two pizzas I ordered were fairly standard.  One sausage and pepperoni.  One ham and bacon.  The toppings and cheese were better than what I remember and definitely had more taste and spices.  I’m not saying that’s a great thing, but it is definitely an improvement.  The sauce itself actually has flavor now, but there’s simply not enough of it to cover the crust in my opinion.

On the failed side of the coin is the fact that it the crust still tastes of cardboard, and it’s still very, very doughy.  It’s a buttery flavored cardboard, but the taste remains.

Why?  In Dominos defense, I honestly think it’s a matter of the packaging rather than the product.  The new “buttery” crust is supposed to isolate the packaging from the pizza, but with the piping hot pizza shoved in the cardboard box, my belief is that the steam/heat from the pizza causes a reaction which in turn, absorbs the cardboard into the crust.  Maybe — if you’re listening Dominos — you can try using a piece of wax paper or something to isolate crust from cardboard.

On the subject of price..

What lead me to bite off on the deal like the sucker that I am, was the published price of 2 pizzas for $5.99 each, or presumably $11.98.  When read the total however, I was greeted with $15.10, which is $11.98 PLUS a “$2.00 delivery fee” (which I am not at all sure goes to the driver) *plus* tax on that $13.98.  So, by the time 2 pizzas hit your door, you can expect to be out about $17.10 including tip to make yourself feel like less of a bastard for jipping the driver.

$17.10 divided by 2 is $8.55.  A full $3 more per pizza than the best home baked frozen pizza from the store, which — again, IMHO — is a hell of a lot better pizza than Dominos.

“Cheap” definitely no longer applies.

In the end…

So.  My considered recommendation as a fat bastard with a pizza craving is….  “Don’t bite”.  While the “new improved” Dominos Pizza is at least a baby step in the right direction, save your money and buy yourself a Digiorno’s, Red Baron, or even a Tombstone.

Or… if you want something even better, try a REAL local pie shop like Big Ed’s Pizza in Huntsville, or the best in your own area.  You’ll be MUCH happier for it.

Wayne Hunt
segwayne.com

Political correctness (adjectivally, politically correct; both forms commonly abbreviated to PC) is a term denoting language, ideas, policies, and behavior seen as seeking to minimize social offense in gender, racial, cultural, sexual orientation, handicap, and age-related contexts. In current usage, the terms are almost exclusively pejorative, connoting “intolerant” and “intolerance”.

In other words, it’s the attempt to alter human speech patterns and thoughts so as to not offend anyone.

Here’s what’s wrong with that idea.

Setting aside the actual fact that political correctness promotes censorship as well as trying to manage what you, as a human being actually thinks, the even moreso simple fact is that there’s simply no way to “not” offend someone.

Take the recent Christmas holiday season for example.  For the last several years, we’ve all seen and read stories about how we’re not supposed to say “Merry Christmas”, instead inserting such inane greetings as “Happy Holidays” so as to not offend Jewish, Muslim, or other religions that might not celebrate Christmas.  You’ve even read stories about stores like Wal-Mart and Target banning their employees from saying “Merry Christmas” in order to appease their customer base.

The problem is, this is America folks.  America as a whole is essentially a Christian nation, so when a store like Wal-Mart (arguably the largest retailer on the planet) puts the kibosh on Christmas to keep from offending any group of customers, they’re actually serving to offend lots, and lots of people.

… but that’s ok, now that Henry Brown (Republican) from South Carolina and his Congressional cohorts are coming on board.

I present to you, HR111-951, a bill before the 111th Congress designed to

Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the symbols and traditions of Christmas should be protected for use by those who celebrate Christmas.

In other words, designed to make it illegal to say “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas” by protecting it by law.

I don’t know folks.  Who wins in this situation?  Why can’t we, as Americans learn the difference between people trying to be offensive, and being offended?  I think almost everyone working for a company has probably had to endure some sort of bullshit “cultural diversity and sensitivity” training, so why hasn’t everyone figured out to just accept that some times, people say, and do stupid things and may offend (intentionally or not) but NO ONE has some mysterious right to “not” be offended…

In the end, the practical result is that — with few extreme exceptions — there’s nothing anyone can say on any given topic without offending someone, so being PC is a complete waste of time, energy and effort.

All I know is that between Wal-Mart, Target, and Representative Henry Brown, all of this crap is enough to completely take the fun — as well as the Christ — out of Christmas.

Wayne Hunt
segwayne.com

After several hours of reflection, I find myself at a loss for many words.

See?  At the heart of my issue, like any fan of the genre, I had grown up on the TV and movie versions of the mid-twentieth century played by heavyweights such as Christopher Plummer in 1979’s “Murder By Decree”  and most famously by Basil Rathbone in almost a dozen movies throughout the 1930’s, and 40’s.

In each of these earlier incarnations of Holmes was a puzzle solver who solidly preferred the “brain over brawn” approach.  Enter this brilliantly done “reimagination” for the 21’st century and we find a Sherlock who’s just at home in a boxing ring as he seems to be in solving crimes.

… an action hero if you will, since that’s all the kids of today seem to be willing to pay for in the theater.

Robert Downey Jr. as Sherlock Holmes (right) with director Guy Ritchie (left)

A story of many turns.

As anyone who’s ever watched a Sherlock Holmes movie — or even a Charlie Chan movie — can tell you, the plots and storyline are pretty deep and heavy, requiring the watcher to actually pay attention.  This in stark contrast to most fluff movies of today and in my opinion, some of the best writing comes out of whodunnits.

2009’s Sherlock Holmes flick, directed by Guy Ritchie of “Snatch” and “RocknRolla” fame doesn’t disappoint.  While you have the sneaking suspicion that you’ve figured it all out, there are still moments throughout the film with enough twists to keep it interesting.

At 2 hours and 14 minutes long, there are scenes which feel a little drawn out, but in the end, you’ll discover that each moment seems to be very much a part of the big reveal, which VERY reminiscent of the exact formula used quite successfully throughout the Basil Rathbone years.

Character Play…

Simply stated, Robert Downey Jr., Jude Law, and Rachel McAdams were almost perfectly cast in their respective roles.

Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law struck a perfect chord as the somewhat arrogant Holmes and the begrudging brother-in-arms, Dr. Watson.  You could easily feel both the near disdain and absolute reliance between the characters on screen.

McAdams came along and helped to complete the set, lending both a “double cross” and quasi-love-interest into the mix.

If I were to have one little quibble, it would be that there were moments where Robert Downey Jr. seemed to mumble his way through lines, but as others in my group pointed out, it was more than likely his interpretation of Holmes, as a brilliant strategist on the verge of insanity.

Either that, or I’m getting old…

In the end…

Even with all the “reimagination” going on to update the character to what we — as an American society — would accept in the theater, I really, really enjoyed this movie..

Much of the objections I expected going into the theater — such as it being more action movie than mystery whodunnit — were addressed, much the same way that 2009’s Star Trek presented us with acceptable reimagined versions of Spock and McCoy.

On a scale of 10, I could easily give this movie an 8.  Subtracting 1 point for mumbling, and another for its sometimes lengthy scenes.