1TO10REVIEWS

This might be one of my favorite cartoons of all time.  It makes me chuckle, without fail, every single time I see it.  On a scale of 1 to 10, it truly rules.  And  rocks.  You get it.

On a scale from 1 to 10, the Blackberry Bold is the sweetest blackberry ever.  (Do you get the double entendre?  Cause a blackberry is also a fruit.  A sweet fruit.  Clever huh?)

It’s no secret that I’ve had an iPhone for a long time.  Sol and I waited in line at the Capitola Mall when the first iPhone launched in June of 2007.  We were even featured in the Santa Cruz Sentinel because we were wacky enough to do so (and we projected Star Wars onto the ceiling of the mall while we waited.)  I’ve enjoyed the iPhone tremendously for almost 2 years straight.  As I am notoriously hard on my gadgets, this is a minor miracle.  When the 3G iPhone came out, I decided that I would stick it out with my old-school Gen. 1 iPhone.  It works great.  Until a couple of weeks ago.

In Vegas for a soccer tournament, my iPhone spontaneously developed a huge issue: the top half of the touch screen stopped working.   It’s pretty hard to use a touch-screen phone when the screen won’t respond to touching.  This left me without a way to communicate for several hours, and more importantly, left me with a device void.

As much as I enjoy the design, form factor, and user experience of the iPhone, there have always been some things that bother me.  For instance, the email function.  The push and pull are slow and sometimes unreliable (at least in my experience.)  Sometimes emails don’t make it out at all, or they come in much later than they should.  Before I got my iPhone, I had a Blackberry 8700c, the last one with the scroll wheel on the side. It worked great.  RIM has it nailed when it comes to mobile email, and I’ve missed the steady reliability of Blackberry email.

Ever since it came out 4 or 5 months ago, the Blackberry Bold (the 9000) has caught my eye.  With a defunct iPhone, and an AT&T account already setup, I thought this was a good chance to try it out.  Worst case, I always have 30 days to return it.  So Monday morning I went to the AT&T store here in SF to check out the Bold.

First thing I discovered, the thing is expensive.  Even with a 2 year re-commitment, I still had to shell out $400 with a $100 mail-in rebate.  Second thing I noticed?  It’s probably worth it.  It is a beautiful device from the gorgeous screen to the cool leather backing.  Drool.

The keyboard is crisp and easy to use, and even though I’ve never liked the nipple / nubbin / pearl / trackball thingy, I found that’s not that hard to get used to.  Email setup and functionality are easy and work like a dream.  One thing I was concerned about was my address book - the iPhone syncs so darn well with my Mac Address Book (and everything else on my Mac.)  I read a bunch of different blog posts, and found very mixed reviews on all the software product.  Luca Filigheddu.com had the best solution I could find: Google Sync.  I exported my Mac Address Book, uploaded it to my Gmail, downloaded Google Sync for Blackberry, and voila everything is where it should be.  Now I have a phone, an amazing mobile email device, and something that is functional for media playback (video, music, etc.)  It’s not as good as the iPhone, but it’s functional.

Now, there’ve been hundreds of reviews of the Bold already, and I don’t need to add yet more detritus to the review world in that sense.  So I’m sticking to the theme of replacing my iPhone with a Blackberry Bold, as opposed to an outright review of an already thoroughly reviewed device.

Unsurprisingly, there are some things I seriously miss about the iPhone.  Media playback is one.  It’s not clean or intuitive on the Bold.  The memory card (I got an 8GB Micros SD for $20 at Buy.com) was easy to insert and load, a lot of the file types supported by the iPhone won’t play on the Bold.  The screen is crisp and beautiful, but it’s a little smaller than the iPhone, and I’ve had a hard time finding things that will play.  This is annoying when I have multiple 1/2 hour commutes on the Caltrain that cry out for entertainment.

In general, I’d say that the overall user experience (form factor, software aesthetics, heft and polish, etc.) are just not as good on the Blackberry.  My wife put it well - the Blackberry is a performance device, it gets the job done.  The Bold is a beautiful phone, but it’s just not an iPhone.

Having used the Blackberry Bold for 3 weeks straight, I’ve come to a decision.  I like having an iPhone.  I love Blackberries - but it just ain’t the same.  Conveniently for me, Apple announced the iPhone 3Gs just this past Tuesday, well within my 30 days tryout period.  So I’ve returned the Bold.  I am waiting it out with my old-skool 8700c for another 8 days, and then it’s back to the iPhone.

If I were forced to give the Blackberry Bold (as a replacement for my iPhone) a numeric rating between 1 and 10, I’d call it a 6.  It’s an amazing device, and if I were going to keep with the Blackberry, I would’t own any other.  But it doesn’t replace the iPhone.  It really doesn’t come close.

On a scale of 1 to 10, my new haircut is really short.

It’s been a little while since we had a silly post on 1to10, so I decided to have a little fun and review my own recent haircut.  I was hanging out with Sol and decided I needed a change.  Truthfully I had been thinking about it quite a bit. We spent last Saturday building a chicken coop (I know, right). We were hot, sweaty and tired, and decided to call it a day around 7:30PM.  After a few minutes of rest and a beer, we decided that we should cut off all my hair.  The pictures below tell the story far better than I ever could, so I’ll let you peruse those.  Needless to say, several friends criticized me for not keeping the hawk.

My new haircut on 12seconds.tv

If I were forced to give my new haircut a numeric rating between 1 and 10, I think I’d give it a 5. I don’t hate it. But I don’t love it either. I’m relieved that my head is not so misshapen that I look freakish, but I’m not sure this is the right look for me either. One of the best things about shaving your head though, is that hair grows back. Any thoughts or feedback on cut are welcome in the comments.

On a scale of 1 to 10, that might be one of my favorite all-time headlines here on 1to10.  :)

I’ve written about water a couple times in the past.  Here, and again here and here.   Water is great.  ”Water is life.” (A point for anyone who can identify the quote.) But drinking plain water, especially tap water, can get kind of old.  That’s why, despite the relatively high cost and seeming utter absurdity of the purchase, I agreed to buy a Penguin.  Even more surprising is the fact that I love it.

The concept is pretty straightforward.  You fill a small glass bottle (20 ounces, or about .6 liters) with tap water, place it in the machine, lock it closed, hit the lever in short 2-second bursts, release the excess pressure, unlock the machine, and voila you have sparkling, bubbly seltzer / soda water.  (Seltzer or salsa?) The machine sort of looks like a penguin.  Hence the name.

Here’s a short video I recorded of the device in action:

As you can see, this appliance has lots of stainless steel, and it feels nicely solid in your hands.  There are no wires or cords, and it requires no electricity.  It comes with 2 glass carafes, and two Co2 cartridges.  The Penguin does use large carbon-dioxide cylinders, each of which lasts for about 6 months (depending of your frequency of use - each cartridge fills about 60 carafes.)  Also, the thing is just fun to use.  I like to squeezer a little lime juice into the carafe, after I pump it full of gas.

Now, if you prefer flat water, this is obviously not for you.  But if you like the fuzzy-nosed tingle of sparkling water, this is a cool, cool device.  I wouldn’t ordinarily buy Pelegrino or another sparkling water brand, so I can’t argue that it’s saving me money long term.  But if you do buy sprakling water at the store with any quantity or frequency, this machine will probably pay for itself in less than a year.  And this is a gadget that I definitely consider “eco-friendly” - especially compared with the possibility of an endless stream of glass or plastic bottles from the store.  You’re cutting down consumables by a huge margin, despite the recyclable carbon-dioxide cartridges.

Speaking of money, this is device is not exactly cheap.  it runs $200 at Williams Sonoma (that’s where I got mine.) Re-fill cartridges run $30, so they’ve set themselves up with a nice, repeating revenue stream. But I think the costs still bear out in your favor, depending on the variables mentioned above.  However, there’s no value you can really place on joy - and this device is joyful.

The WS website (and other locations around the web) offer other video demos, all of  which probably have greater artistic merit than mine (read: better lighting, a superior camera, and a better looking spokesperson.)  But I had fun making my video.  The company behind the Penguin is called Soda Stream USA; you can choose to purchase it directly from them, as well as finding additional recipes on their site (for those that crave flavor.)  There’s another excellent review of the device over at Uber Review if you want a second opinion.

If I were forced to give this appliance a numeric rating between 1and 10, I’d call it a 9.  It’s pretty, it’s functional, it’s green, it’s simple, and it’s fun to use.  If I have a complaint, it’s on cost.  Not because it’s not worth it, I just like my money in my own wallet.

My friend Andrew is a genius.  He’s a 10.

I use Mac Mail.  Not because it’s the best mail client of all time, but because it’s better than most of the other ones I’ve tried on the Mac (Entourage [which is Outlook for the Mac], Thunderbird, Zimbra).  They have major issues.  Mail has the best search, and does a good enough job with everything else.  The attachment issue (it frequently shoves whole docs or picutres into the mail itself) is annoying, but not a big deal to me. But there has been one persistent, annoying, frustrating, stupid issue I couldn’t get past.  Hyperlinking.

Every mail client in the known Universe, even the ones on Arrakis, let you use a simple keystroke to hyperlink to a website within an email.  But not Mac Mail.  It’s such a basic, obvious feature, and something I need to do in virtually every email I send.  And instead of a quick keystroke, I have highligh, edit, link, add link, type link, hit OK.  Every time.  Stupid.

But Andrew just showed me the solution. Many of you probably think it’s obvious, just add a keystroke in sys pref.  Others probably say “Why didn’t you just Google it.”  Well maybe you’re right, I should have figured it out earlier.  But now Andrew has made my world a little better for me, and I appreciate it (and him.)

If you want to be able to create hyperlinks in Mac Mail, look here.  For those who don’t want to click, here’s the easy steps:

1. Open “System Preferences” (from the “Apple” symbol in the top left)
2. Select “Keyboard & Mouse”
3. Select “Keyboard Shortcuts” (third tab, right side top)
4. Click the + symbol to add a new shortcut
5. From dropdown, select “Mail.app”
6. In Menu title type: “Add…”  (no quotes)
7. Assign a keystroke shortcut (I chose Command L)

That’s it.  Quit Mail (if it’s open) and then re-open it.  You should now be able to assign hyperlinks in Mac Mail with keyoard shortcuts.  Thank you Andrew.

BTW, if it doesn’t work, then Andrew is to blame.  FYI.

On a scale of 1 to 10, using keyboard shortcuts to assign hyperlinks in Mac Mail deserves a 10 out of 10.  El yay!

On a scale of 1 to 10, the new iPod shuffle is just stupid.  (You could probably tell from the title what I want to rate it.)

Good lord.  Where to begin.  Let’s start with a disclaimer.  I haven’t touched or seen the new shuffle in person.  Deride me all you want, I don’t care.  Apple has made several colossal, incredible mistakes with this device.

Anyone who’s read this blog before (only a rare few have come back more than once) knows that I care a great deal about Apple, and that I adore the aluminum shuffle.  That review was one of my very first, and it took place almost exactly 2 years ago.  I like that shuffle so much that I even got a second one and had it waterproofed.  But this new one… sigh.

Let’s see.  No buttons. Brilliant, let’s use an earphone-based switch.  Except, wait a second, what if I want to use a different set of earphones?  I can tell you for a certainty that some people (Sol) don’t like Apple’s earbuds - they just don’t fit.  So now I’m locked into Apple’s proprietary earphones whether I like it or not.  I will be unable to skip songs, pause and play, or change the volume without them.  Epic Fail.  And the controls are not very straightforward - Adrian Covert over at Gizmodo compares it to Morse Code.  Haha.

Form factor.  The new one is smaller.  Small as a house key.  Whoopee.  I use my square shuffle when I run, and I clip it to the waistband on my shorts.  It fits easily and doesn’t pinch or push against my skin.  The new one is long and skinny instead of square.  Maybe it occupies less cubic space overall, but it’s still longer than the square version, which means that it sticks further down the leg and is significantly more likely to pinch and press against the top of the leg while running.  Wahhhh!  I know, I’m a crybaby.  Don’t care.  I don’t see how making it rectangular and slightly smaller is an improvement.  Doubling the flash memory while shrinking the device (and preserving battery function) is a technological feat, I will grant them that.

The point is, they’re messing up an excellent product.  Even sight unseen, Apple just took a 7.5 and made it a 3.  The earphone restriction is egregious.  Moronic. Idiotic. It’s dumb.  The judgement on the form factor is my opinion.  Others may disagree, and that’s cool.  They can write their own blog.  But imho, there is no excuse for this stupidity.

Apple is a money-hungry American corporation that wants to insert themselves into our lives and control all our devices and hence have control over our actions and more importantly our buying habits.  For this I applaud them.  Seriously, I’m an American and a capitalist.  I love Apple, even if I find some of their practices annoying (DRM anyone?)  But when they start making bad (or worse yet, stupid) product decisions, that shakes my faith and my confidence in the world of consumer electronics.  As noted above, if I were force to rate this product (albeit without playing with it in person) on a scale from 1 to 10, it would get a 3.  If it weren’t being compared to such a superior previous version, it might score better.  But the earphone thing is pretty stupid.  Gahhh.

This review is also published at LIVEdigitally.

On a scale of 1 to 10, this video is the bee’s knees. This is one of my favorite Internet videos of all time, and I have seen it no less that 87 times. It’s an oldie, but very much a goodie. I’d put it up there with “The Website is down.”

If I were forced to give this a numeric rating between 1 and 10, it would be a 10.

On a scale of 1 to 10, the Mophie Juicepack for gen. 1 iPhones stinks of fallibility.

Wow.  That sounds harsh.  I actually think the Mophie Juicepack is a really cool gadget.  Basically it’s an external battery for your iPhone.  The product design is fantastic - it’s got a black, slightly rubberized, really high quality feeling to it.  The colors (black outside, green inside) look sharp, and it has a neat light-up battery meter.  Sol got one for his 3G iPhone and loves it.  Loves it. (I sent a message to Mophie prior to publishing this review, but they’ve declined to comment.  )

Once I saw his, I knew I wanted one also.  When your phone is starting to run down mid-day, just pop it into the Juice Pack and boom - you get at least another 3 hours or so out of your phone, and you’re still totally mobile.  Sounds great right?  Well, it is great.  When it works.

My first Mophie Juicepack was a dud.   A lemon.  It didn’t work.  I charged it up over night (using a regular 10 pin iPod cable) and the following day, after my phone was about half dead, I popped it into the Juicepack.  Immediately I heard the little upbeat “ping” noise that means the phone is charging.  Sweet.  Until 4 seconds later, I heard the downbeat “pong” noise that means you’ve just unplugged your iPhone.  Weak sauce.

Basically, the iPhone would find the power source, ping the connection, show the “charging” icon with the lightning bolt, and then lose the connection and stop charging.  Naturally I called tech support, and they were honestly great.  The guy I spoke with had me run through some crazy diagnostics, including sticking a butter knife in the connector (it was pretty sweet) to test whether it just needed a reset.  But the test and  reset did not fix the problem, so the Mophie guys sent me out a replacement.  It came in two days.  I have no complaints on tech support, they were stellar. 

Sadly, the new one didn’t do a whole lot better.  It has a slightly less severe, but even more annoying version, of the same exact problem. What happens is this: I plug in the iPhone.  “Ping” goes the connection and BOOM! we’re charging.  Awesome.  Until 30 seconds or so goes by, and the phone “pongs” because it lost the connection.  For 5 seconds.  Then “ping” we’re charging again.  In the 3 hours I had my iPhone plugged into the Mophie Juicepack, it connected, disconnected, and then reconnected no less than 81 times.  I kept count for a while, but got bored.  Do you have any idea how distracting it is to hear your phone going “ping,” “pong,” “ping” in your pocket over and over again?  “Gee David, why not just turn it on silent?”  Nice try.  Vibrating in your pocket ever 15-20 seconds is, if anything, even worse than pinging and ponging.  I had the one of the most annoying, distracting, frustrating dinners of all time on Friday with my damn iPhone buzzing on and off every quarter minute.

Now, as I said, Sol has one of these for the 3G and loves it. And the new “Air” Juicepack for 3G’s looks sweet as well. So maybe just the Gen. 1 version has quality control issues.  The look, style, and feel of this device is so cool, but the performance on two in a row was awful.  And at $99 (a damn hefty price for an accessory) I’d expect solid, reliable performance.  I was prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt on the first failure.  But two in a row is two too many for me.  If I were forced to give the Mophie Juicepack for gen. 1 iPhones a numeric rating between 1 and 10, it’s a 3 for me.  Outstanding marks for design, dismal scores for quality assurance and performance.  Below is a 12second video of the Juicepack in action. 

Mophie Juicepack for Gen. 1 iPhone on 12seconds.tv

On a scale of 1 to 10, Chrome bags look bitchin’.  The question is, do they function as well as they look?  I mean, the logo is rad, the seat-belt style buckle is unbelievably cool, and the color choices kick almost everyone elses behinds.  (Timbuk2 bags also offers cool color varietals, but they just seem so darn preppy.)  Nah, in terms of cool factor, Chrome bags definitely carry the day.  But I’m probably getting ahead of myself. Let me backtrack.

This review is about messenger bags, bike messenger bags, and specifically those made by Chrome.  I got my grubby mitts on a Citizen Bike Messenger bag from Chrome Industries, based in foggy San Francisco, CA. Typically a messenger bag is a single shoulder bag that opens horizontally, has one main strap, a large primary compartment, some level of secondary organizational compartments, and then a myriad of different possible accessories.  These might include some degree of padding, a laptop compartment, stabilizer straps, a removable primary strap, a grab handle, etc. etc. ad nauseum.  (I like bags.)

Working daily in San Francisco, I keep seeing Chrome gear all over the place.  Mostly they’re carried by dirt-baggy, scruffy faced ruffians who nimbly dodge through traffic and congregate during lunch on Market and Montgomery (read: bike messengers.)  The other primary class of people carrying these bags are poseurs.  I mean, serious wannabes who think the logo is cool and want to seem hip with their designer, hip-hugger jeans, their button down shirts with swirly embroidery, their stupid looking goatee with pencil-thin sideburns on their jawline and their aviator sunglasses… yeah, you know who I mean.  I don’t want to be that guy.  And I’m not sure I can pull off the Citizen, especially off my bike (you know, just walking around.)

Now, to be clear, I am looking at messenger bags from a particular perspective.  I do use it on my bike, I commute from San Mateo to San Francisco using my bicycle and the Caltrain.  My typical time on the bike varies between 45 minutes to 1 hour and 45 minutes per day, depending on which route I choose.  So I am doing a fair amount of biking with the bag.  But I am not a bike messenger.  This means a couple things.  I am not on my bike 8 hours a day.  And I specifically need to carry a few key items, not all kinds of random crap for delivery across the city.  I am commuting to work, not routing back and forth across a concrete jungle.  I need to carry:

• laptop
• power charger
• sunglasses
• a book
• a layer
• a snack
• an iphone charging cord
• gum

I’m on the train for part of my commute, so I frequently need to yank out my computer, or get to my book to catch up on some leisure reading.  I want the bag to be comfortable, even when heavily weighted.  I want it to be weather proof, I get caught by rain frequently, especially in the Winter time. I’d like some organization options, multiple pockets and compartments.  Ideally I’d like a padded laptop sleeve, so that I can pop out the computer without having to scrabble past all the other junk in my bag.  And I want it to look dope.  Yeah, I’m vain.  I deal with it, and so should you.

Before I ever picked one up, I went to the streets and asked some regular folks sporting Chrome what they thought.  One person complained that though he was really excited at first, he didn’t like the fact that it was just a big sack.  One big hole to drop stuff into, with little or no organizational options.  This is one of my concerns too.  On the one hand, I like simplicity.  The Citizen is straightforward - it’s a bag, it holds stuff.  There are a few pockets.  One zippered, one non-zippered, and a couple of pen / pencil sleeves.

This is sufficient for most of the small items, and offers a decent level of organization.   My biggest gripe, organizationally speaking, is really the lack of a laptop sleeve and the lack of padding.  It would be great to be able to pull out the laptop and leave the rest of my gear undisturbed.  As it is, I use a neoprene sleeve that I bought aftermarket in order to put some padding around my way-too-expensive mac.  This works fine, but the sleeve would be a nice built-in feature.

It’s important to note here that the Citizen is not intended to be, and was not designed to be a laptop bag. It’s a messenger bag, for carrying stuff around on a bike.  I am choosing to use a messenger bag as a laptop bag.  If I use a screwdriver to drive a nail, I might succeed in pounding the sucker in, but I also might get some bent nails.  So I am duly forewarned. That being said, more and more people are bike commuting all the time - lord knows it’s hard to get a seat on the Caltrain for the 8:15AM train.  So I think I’m not the only person who’d benefit from a couple of design alterations.  And Chrome, btw, does offer some laptop-oriented bags.  But none of them are quite like the classic “messenger-style” bags, and none of their messenger bags really hit the mark for the computer commuter.

Another oddity to me is the stabilizer strap.  It seems to me like it ought to run opposite of the primary strap.  In other words, if I wear the bag on my left shoulder, then the stabilizer strap should logically come up my right side, no?  Well, Chrome disagrees, and their stabilizer runs along the same side as the primary strap, and runs under armpit (see left.)  I found this to be pretty ineffective - the bag rolls on me just as much with this as without it.

There are a couple of things I would change about this bag, to make it the perfect bag for me. Let me reiterate - these are not necessarily shortcomings in the bag itself (at least not all of them); rather, these are things that would improve the bag for my purposes:

• Padded laptop sleeve (I’ve covered this)
• Waterproof zipper with storm-sleeve to access the laptop sleeve - it would be awesome to be able to yank out the laptop without needing to unbuckle two clips and rip apart massive velcro.
• Better stabilizer strap - I think it ought to come from the other side of the bag

The lack of a zipper will stop me from using this bag when I travel.  It’s just too difficult to pull things out of the bag when it’s stuffed under the seat in front of me when I’m riding coach in an airplane.  All that velcro, ugh. But I can also understand not wanting to compromise the waterproof integrity of the bag.  And for riding into work everyday, I am willing to put up with the shortcomings because there a lot of things I really like.  I’ll tell you what I think makes this bag a big winner:

• The buckle - it’s darn near iconic in San Francisco, and it’s just like a seatbelt in a car.  That’s rad.
• The materials - ballistic nylon and truck tarpaulin are badass, durable and waterproof
• The anatomical, padded shoulder strap - even heavily loaded this is a comfortable bag to ride with, even without any padding to speak of
• Shoulder strap again, specifically, the way it holds the bag upright - with a lot of other messenger bags I’ve used (including an Osprey and a Jandd bag) there is a constant tendency for the bag to swing sideways.  The shoulder strap on the Chrome messengers actually hold the bag more or less vertically, and the shape itself (with a little help from gravity) actually hold it in place.  It was this design element that first caught my eye.
• The one-handed tightener and loosener on the chest strap

Here’s a quick video demo of the Citizen:

Demoing the Chrome Citizen Messenger Bag on 12seconds.tv

The Citizen from Chrome is an outstanding messenger bag with an unusual and innovative design, outstanding materials, the sweetest logo on the market, a wickedly cool (unbreakable?) buckle, and awesome color options.  There are some things it does really well, and others that could stand improvement.  But on the whole I think the bag will serve well enough for my biking commuter-geek purposes, and it’s clearly outstanding for the purpose for which it was originally intended - to be a bike messenger bag that will last for years of hard abuse.  When I’m riding my bike, I’m stoked to have this bag cause it’s comfortable, functional, and cool-looking.  When I’m not on my bike and I carry this bag, I feel like a poseur, a big lame-o that’s trying too hard to look cool.

If I were forced to give this bag a numeric rating between 1 and 10, I’d have to split things up a bit.  For the purposes of a computer-commuter bag, I’d give it a 7.  As a travel bag it’s a 5.  And as a bike messenger bag this one is a 10.  If I change career paths and start delivering packages via bicycle, I won’t carry anything else.  (I’d be laughed at, scoffed and mocked by the other guys if I did anyway.)

This review is also available at LIVEdigitally.

On a scale from 1 to 10, Avo Uvezian Pyramids are simply delicious. 

When I was 18 years old I had my first Avo torpedo, one of the best cigars of my whole life.  13 years (and hundreds of cigars) later, my opinion remains unchanged.  These are some of the best cigars around, period.  The hype about genuine Havanas is both true and false.  It’s true that many Cuban cigars are fantastic.  But it’s false that they are necessarily the best in the world.  In point of fact, you can find other brands that are every bit as good as Havanas, and this is one of them.  

My wife bought me a box of these incredible smokes as a wedding present when we got married.  (The fact that she bought me cigars for our wedding should help clarify why I married her.)  :) Normally these are outside of my limited budget, and I’ve been hoarding them since our nuptials. The stock is starting to dwindle, so I am carefully rationing them out and enjoying each one immensely.  

Smoking an Avo Torpedo on 12seconds.tv

If I were forced to give them a numeric rating between one and ten, I’d call them a 9.  There’s really nothing I would change about them except the price.  At $140 a box (MSRP of $250) they’re a tad pricey.  But I can’t really blame them - they’re worth the price.  All Avo’s are tasty, and the pyramidos are spectacular.