![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
So, I saw a new film this weekend, and read a new book.
I can't say I was particularly impressed with either of them, to be honest. Cuts contain spoilers.
The movie:
I enjoyed the first one of these - I thought that Guy Ritchie had played it exactly right in the mix of genius and comedic bumbling that inevitably arises when characters like Holmes and Watson go the door kicking route. I will freely admit that a lot of the 'feel' of the movie is something I rely on heavily for the Lottie book I'm currently writing. So, I went into this with some fairly high expectations, based both on the previous performance, but also on the fact that the producers had added a new female character and expanded an old one.
( Sherlock Holmes and The Game Of Shadows )
The book:
So, one of my work friends runs a book review blog on the side. She is also of the authory type, and actually did her degree in creative writing *cue jealously*. She passed this book to me with the by-line "I don't often read fantasy, but this is the best fantasy book I've ever read!"
Holy crap, thought I - high praise indeed. And settled in to devour it over the weekend.
And devour it I did...until I got a little over halfway through. At which point I sighed, and ground my teeth in annoyance. But carried on.
And then I go to the penultimate chapter. And, having polished it off, nearly threw the damn thing across the room in annoyance.
A friend of mine once told me about libido whiplash - where you think you're happily heading down the route of arousal when something happens that turns you off so hard that you actually end up with bruising and contusions around your groin due to the speed with which it decided to go another direction.
This book, right here? This is literary whiplash.
( Daughter of Smoke And Bone )
Also: My new phone is good in many ways. And not so in others. My main problem with it is that it's too eager to help me type when I send a text.
You see, if I teach it a new word, or if I've had to put in a custom word at any point, it will assume this is my favorite word. Of all time. And nothing will ever change that...except another new word.
It will also do this with any names I had to type in letter by letter for my contact list. It thinks I'm the friendliest person in the world, and if I ever use a word that looks like a name, I must actually want to use the name, and will switch it in. So, one of my friends has the surname 'Dontife*'. Which means if ever I use the word 'do', it becomes 'Dontife'. 'Don't' also gets transformed. Anything, in fact, that starts with me typing '36' will end up with my phone desperately trying to switch in a word that makes NO FRIGGING SENSE.
Similarly, '4663' doesn't end up with 'home'. Or 'good', or 'gone' or 'hood' or anything else that would be sensible - it ends up with Goodmayes, which is one of my grandmother's houses.
I recently had to teach it the word 'viewings' - unsurprising, given we're house hunting - and this means, according to my phone, that never again will I use the word 'the' - my new singular pronoun is now 'viewings'.
Gobbledegook, it is.
Because even without the above, it's selection process wasn't the greatest. It doesn't seem to adapt according to what I use most and least. If I type in '27' to try and get the word 'as', the following is what I get, in the order they're presented:
Cr
Ar
Br
As
Yup - 3 non dictionary random letter combos before a common word. '63' is the same - apparently I'm vastly more likely to try to type 'Ne' than I am to want 'Me' or 'Of'. As is '23' - 'Bd' and 'Ce' are options presented ahead of the actually-a-word 'Be'.
How frustrating is this when I'm trying to type a quick text to my mother fielding yet more requests for Xmas pressie ideas in the middle of answering a call to an irate customer? Fucking very. Dear Sony: Get your finger out.
Or, as your ridiculous texting programme would prefer me to write: Gethelin your finger outbox.
That is all.
* - they don't, actually, but they have a name with a similar relation to another common word.
I can't say I was particularly impressed with either of them, to be honest. Cuts contain spoilers.
The movie:
I enjoyed the first one of these - I thought that Guy Ritchie had played it exactly right in the mix of genius and comedic bumbling that inevitably arises when characters like Holmes and Watson go the door kicking route. I will freely admit that a lot of the 'feel' of the movie is something I rely on heavily for the Lottie book I'm currently writing. So, I went into this with some fairly high expectations, based both on the previous performance, but also on the fact that the producers had added a new female character and expanded an old one.
( Sherlock Holmes and The Game Of Shadows )
The book:
So, one of my work friends runs a book review blog on the side. She is also of the authory type, and actually did her degree in creative writing *cue jealously*. She passed this book to me with the by-line "I don't often read fantasy, but this is the best fantasy book I've ever read!"
Holy crap, thought I - high praise indeed. And settled in to devour it over the weekend.
And devour it I did...until I got a little over halfway through. At which point I sighed, and ground my teeth in annoyance. But carried on.
And then I go to the penultimate chapter. And, having polished it off, nearly threw the damn thing across the room in annoyance.
A friend of mine once told me about libido whiplash - where you think you're happily heading down the route of arousal when something happens that turns you off so hard that you actually end up with bruising and contusions around your groin due to the speed with which it decided to go another direction.
This book, right here? This is literary whiplash.
( Daughter of Smoke And Bone )
Also: My new phone is good in many ways. And not so in others. My main problem with it is that it's too eager to help me type when I send a text.
You see, if I teach it a new word, or if I've had to put in a custom word at any point, it will assume this is my favorite word. Of all time. And nothing will ever change that...except another new word.
It will also do this with any names I had to type in letter by letter for my contact list. It thinks I'm the friendliest person in the world, and if I ever use a word that looks like a name, I must actually want to use the name, and will switch it in. So, one of my friends has the surname 'Dontife*'. Which means if ever I use the word 'do', it becomes 'Dontife'. 'Don't' also gets transformed. Anything, in fact, that starts with me typing '36' will end up with my phone desperately trying to switch in a word that makes NO FRIGGING SENSE.
Similarly, '4663' doesn't end up with 'home'. Or 'good', or 'gone' or 'hood' or anything else that would be sensible - it ends up with Goodmayes, which is one of my grandmother's houses.
I recently had to teach it the word 'viewings' - unsurprising, given we're house hunting - and this means, according to my phone, that never again will I use the word 'the' - my new singular pronoun is now 'viewings'.
Gobbledegook, it is.
Because even without the above, it's selection process wasn't the greatest. It doesn't seem to adapt according to what I use most and least. If I type in '27' to try and get the word 'as', the following is what I get, in the order they're presented:
Cr
Ar
Br
As
Yup - 3 non dictionary random letter combos before a common word. '63' is the same - apparently I'm vastly more likely to try to type 'Ne' than I am to want 'Me' or 'Of'. As is '23' - 'Bd' and 'Ce' are options presented ahead of the actually-a-word 'Be'.
How frustrating is this when I'm trying to type a quick text to my mother fielding yet more requests for Xmas pressie ideas in the middle of answering a call to an irate customer? Fucking very. Dear Sony: Get your finger out.
Or, as your ridiculous texting programme would prefer me to write: Gethelin your finger outbox.
That is all.
* - they don't, actually, but they have a name with a similar relation to another common word.
