It’s rare for me to come across a book solely dealing with the Mongol conquests, with the last two being Gabriel’s Genghis Khan’s Greatest General in 2007 and an old book (translated from a French author?) based on The Secret History of the Mongols back in the ’80s. So, a fictional account from the perspective of Genghis himself seemed a bit interesting.

A bit interesting might be the best way to describe this book. I don’t know if it is just me but Iggulden’s work seems leaden. Leaden as in his Genghis character doesn’t have as much heart or feeling as in, let’s say, Cornwell’s Sharpe; leaden as in his battle scenes lack excitement whereas a good author can make you think that you’re standing there in the line of battle. It’s the sort of book that you can skim and, admittedly, I did skim about ten to twenty pages and I felt as if I didn’t really miss anything.

It’s not a bad book but it’s not a great book. It should be a basic primer for anyone interested in the early Mongol conquests but don’t expect to be any more wowed by it than if you’d picked up a good history book.

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Oh man! I never really thought that I would write those words. For well over an hour this morning, I’ve been trying to print to the old LaserJet 4M+ from this MBP. No go. I kept getting a

“Attempting to connect to host 192.168.1.104 for printer
Network host ‘192.168.1.104′ is busy; will retry in 30 seconds”

message. It seems that this is a common problem or it’s a recurring problem because I’ve found through Google numerous posts about this going back years!

I’ve tried resetting the printing system in OS X a couple of times, pausing and deleting printer jobs, trying different apps and so on. Nothing worked. And I certainly was not going to buy a new printer just because Apple couldn’t get its act together regarding network printing. So, I remembered a site that I used a couple of years back called iFelix and which I had posted about and fired up a WinXP machine. The instructions are meant for 10.4 but there seem to be less steps with 10.5 which is a good thing. So, I am now once again printing through SAMBA.

It’s not the best solution but it’s better than alternatives such as buying a new printer, upgrading the firmware on the router to handle AppleTalk, etc.

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As a followup to the New Year’s post and stirred by a friend’s sister’s “deliverance” from what was feared to be terminal cancer, I’d like to post that as of last week, my injured wrist is now deemed to be almost healed! There is still some stiffness and some minor pain but both the physiotherapist and the fracture specialist at St. Mike’s believe that I am good to go. I’ll still need to work it on occasion throughout the day but I really don’t have to see either one of them again.

For those of you who need a good chiropractor/physiotherapist, you can give Dr. Minh Hao of Old Cabbagetown Physiotherapy in downtown Toronto (in Cabbagetown where else?) a call at (416) 972-9997. He’s very well-trained, knowledgeable, and personable. Just make sure that he writes down your progress in terms of measurements both before and after a visit because once or twice we had to guess or had to run back to the filing cabinet. It’s a minor detail but annoying when you can only see him once a week. It’s nothing if you see him every second day.

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A little late but better than never. Best wishes to everyone for the New Year, I realize that in today’s uncertain economic world that everyone is concerned about their finances but I know of friends such as G and K who have undergone episodes of poor health and they are the ones who make me realize how important it is that your health should always come first. Without your health, you can never take care of your finances.

So, I’m hoping that you’ll all concentrate more on being healthy rather than rich in the coming year. Cheers!

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