Lady of the House

I noticed today that one of my two male zebra finches appears to have an injured foot. His rear left toe is curled up under his foot so that he steps on it when he perches, and as the day has gone on it has darkened. He and his cage mate seem perfectly happy, and he has been active and vocal as usual all day, except for favoring the injured foot. I have read online that zebra finches will sometimes suffer injuries to their feet and lose toes as a result, without much impact on their later lives. Will this likely be the case with this bird? I was also wondering if infection was something I need to worry about, and, if so, what steps I can take to avoid it. If necessary, I could take him to a vet, since we have an avian vet very near my house, but I am dubious of their ability to help an bird this small. Also, since he is the omega bird in the cage, might the other male bird pick on him if he loses a toe? They usually get along quite well aside from a few spats every now and then, but I'm worried this might affect the dynamic in the cage. Any advice on this situation would be much appreciated.

This is one of my genetics problems for homework:

Having red eyes in fruit flies is a dominant sex-linked trait carried on the x chromosome. If a white eyed female is carrying a red eyed gene and mates with a male red eyed fruit fly, what is the probability of the offspring that will have red eyes?

My question is, if the red-eyed trait is dominant, could the white-eyed female have a red-eye gene? Wouldn't she have red eyes if that were the case, or am I just being stupid here?

Mine is a mechanical Olivetti typewriter; its ribbon has recently given up the ghost, and I am trying to find a store or a reliable website where I can purchase a replacement.

I've done quite a few searches for this and can't find it. It was a poem quoted in the 1959 Disney movie "Darby O'Gill and the Little People". To the best of my memory, it goes something like this:

The ruins of Old Ireland,

How wondrously they stand

(Something something something) on the hilltops of our land

Around this ruined castle

The Viking and the Dane

The Norman and the Saxon and the cavalier of Spain

Does anyone know the title or author, or a place where I might be able to find this poem? Thank you!

I came across a name recently but don't know how to pronounce it; the name is Hagh. I asked some people I know, and was told it's Welsh or Scottish, and probably pronounced "Hay" or "Hoff" (different people varied in opinions of pronunciation). So does anyone here have a more definite answer? Much appreciated.

I came across a name recently but don't know how to pronounce it; the name is Hagh. I asked some people I know, and was told it's Welsh or Scottish, and probably pronounced "Hay" or "Hoff" (different people varied in opinions of pronunciation). So does anyone here have a more definite answer? Much appreciated.

Recently my friends and I were debating over which super villain is the best. I told them my favorite was far and away Lex Luthor, and that Gene Hackman was indisputably the best actor who ever played the character. Their question to me was not "Why do you think so?", but "Who's Gene Hackman?"

I was amazed. Hackman is not one of those flash-in-the-pan Hollywood obscurities. He's a well-established, well-respected actor with more talent than he knows what to do with, and has been in numerous blockbusters ranging from "Bonnie and Clyde" to "Hoosiers" to "Superman". Sure, he hasn't made a movie since 2004, but six years shouldn't be enough time for one of the greats of the acting world to fall into complete oblivion, should it?

The situation brought to mind all the times my grandparents had mentioned a celebrity and I'd had no idea who they were talking about. I'm too young for this…

Has anyone else ever run into one of these situations? I'm just curious.

Okay, I'm working on an assignment for my psychology class and I'd appreciate if you could answer these questions, or as many of them as you can. (I know some of them may feel like a bit too much personal information. You don't have to answer ones that make you uncomfortable.)

1.) What is your gender?

2.) What is your astrological sign?

3.) What is your age (or age group, if you prefer)?

4.) Do you usually side with the hero or the villain in books and movies?

5.) Who is your favorite super hero or villain and why?

Thank you!

Okay, I'm working on an assignment for my psychology class and I'd appreciate if you could answer these questions, or as many of them as you can.

1.) What is your gender?

2.) What is your astrological sign?

3.) What is your age (or age group, if you prefer)?

4.) Do you usually side with the hero or the villain in books and movies?

5.) Who is your favorite super hero or villain and why?

Thank you!

When titling a book, do you find it most important to pick a title that draws the reader in or a title that's relevant to the story? If you had to choose between an exciting title and a title that means something (i.e. it might sound boring but during the story you find out it's important), which would it be?

As an example, when I was titling the story I am currently working on, I was dithering between the titles "Heroes and Villains" and "The Man in the Water". Although the second of the two sounds much more compelling, the first has a double meaning when used with the story. (Note: I'm not asking for advice on that; I know which one I'm going to use.)

Anyway, I'm just interested to see if anyone else has ever considered this, and if so, what your opinion is and why. Which do you think is the most important in a title: being interesting or being relevant?

In the novel I'm currently writing there are several characters with events in their lives that are very important to the main book. The instances happened in the past, and many are very complicated, so making them an actual part of the main story wouldn't work (at least not to the extent I would need it to). My solution was to write a chapter for each character, the chapter being a short story detailing the event. These chapters have nothing much to do with the action of the book except that they affect the character's later actions. They appear directly after each character is introduced.

My friends who have read the first draft are divided as to whether they like this style. Some do, and say that it's a good way to bring a character into play, it's an interesting aside to the main plot, and that these chapters are positioned in places where they don't interrupt the flow of the story. Others don't like it because they're irritated by the idea of a short story in the middle of a novel and say I spend too much time trying to establish an entire character in one place.

I personally like the way it turned out, but there are enough people that hate it to make me reevaluate. I can see this from both sides, and I'm sort of stumped as to what to do. Would this bother you as a reader? If so, how would you suggest I change it to make it less of an annoyance and still be able to give the necessary information for each character?

(And tell me if you need anything cleared up; I'm not sure I've done a very good job explaining this.)

Mine would be Marley Ellis. Marley is my real name and I like it, and I would use Ellis for the surname because it flows well and that way the initials would spell M.E.

So, if YOU were to write a book and use a pseudonym rather than your real name, what would you choose and why?

I'm working on the names for the two organizations in my book, and I want your opinion.

The groups both go by acronyms. One is ULF and the other is HOBS.

One is good and one is evil. Not knowing what the letters stand for, which do you think would be which?

Thanks, everyone.

I'm working on the names for the two organizations in my book, and I want your opinion.

The groups both go by acronyms. One is ULF and the other is HOBS.

One is good and one is evil. Not knowing what the letters stand for, which do you think would be which?

Thanks, everyone.

I'm working on the names for the two organizations in my book, and I want your opinion.

The groups both go by acronyms. One is ULF and the other is HOBS.

One is good and one is evil. Not knowing what the letters stand for, which do you think would be which?

Thanks, everyone.

I'm working on a book right now, and I wanted to know if you all thought these character names sound good, as far as their phonetic flow and the image they conjure of the character.

The book is a fantasy parody, so the names aren't "normal"; if some of them sound absurd, ridiculous, and idiotic, it's because they're supposed to. The names are below:

Septimus Octavian Nines (Tim for short)

Salem Yorik Garm

Snookeroo Elias Garm (Snook for short)

Heather Hather

Beulah Phott

Nancy Krimlin Crummies

Smithe Sommers

Silas Algernon Longue

Dr. Rigel Jones

Col. Sinclair Richards (nicknamed Leggy)

Altor Calchas

Sgt. Iago Insurgo King

Magna Carta King (Maggie for short)

Nathan Faust Moore (Nate for short)

Linnea Hadgebak

Junius Kraken

Virgil Grimshaw

(Note: the characters with the long names are the ones that have middle names; the second name is rarely mentioned.)

All input is welcome. Thanks, everyone!

I'm working on a book right now, and I wanted to know if you all thought these character names sound good, as far as their phonetic flow and the image they conjure of the character.

The book is a fantasy parody, so the names aren't "normal"; if some of them sound absurd, ridiculous, and idiotic, it's because they're supposed to. The names are below:

Septimus Octavian Nines (Tim for short)

Salem Yorik Garm

Snookeroo Elias Garm (Snook for short)

Heather Hather

Beulah Phott

Nancy Krimlin Crummies

Smithe Sommers

Silas Algernon Longue

Dr. Rigel Jones

Col. Sinclair Richards (nicknamed Leggy)

Altor Calchas

Sgt. Iago Insurgo King

Magna Carta King (Maggie for short)

Nathan Faust Moore (Nate for short)

Linnea Hadgebak

Junius Kraken

Virgil Grimshaw

(Note: the characters with the long names are the ones that have middle names; the second name is rarely mentioned.)

All input is welcome. Thanks, everyone!

I'm working on a book right now, and I wanted to know if you all thought these character names sound good, as far as their phonetic flow and the image they conjure of the character.

The book is a fantasy parody, so the names aren't "normal"; if some of them sound absurd, ridiculous, and idiotic, it's because they're supposed to. The names are below:

Septimus Octavian Nines (Tim for short)

Salem Yorik Garm

Snookeroo Elias Garm (Snook for short)

Heather Hather

Beulah Phott

Nancy Krimlin Crummies

Smithe Sommers

Silas Algernon Longue

Dr. Rigel Jones

Col. Sinclair Richards (nicknamed Leggy)

Altor Calchas

Sgt. Iago Insurgo King

Magna Carta King (Maggie for short)

Nathan Faust Moore (Nate for short)

Linnea Hadgebak

Junius Kraken

Virgil Grimshaw

(Note: the characters with the long names are the ones that have middle names; the second name is rarely mentioned.)

All input is welcome. Thanks, everyone!

I'm working on a book right now, and I wanted to know if you all thought these character names sound good, as far as their phonetic flow and the image they conjure of the character.

The book is a fantasy parody, so the names aren't "normal"; if some of them sound absurd, ridiculous, and idiotic, it's because they're supposed to. The names are below:

Septimus Octavian Nines (Tim for short)

Salem Yorik Garm

Snookeroo Elias Garm (Snook for short)

Heather Hather

Beulah Phott

Nancy Krimlin Crummies

Smithe Sommers

Silas Algernon Longue

Dr. Rigel Jones

Col. Sinclair Richards (nicknamed Leggy)

Altor Calchas

Sgt. Iago Insurgo King

Magna Carta King (Maggie for short)

Nathan Faust Moore (Nate for short)

Linnea Hadgebak

Junius Kraken

Virgil Grimshaw

All input is welcome. Thanks, everyone!

This is an excerpt from a book I’m writing; I hope some of you will take the time to read it. I’m 43, with two books already in print, and I’m hoping to finish this one by the ned of the year. I just wanted to see what people thought. This is from the middle of the book, so forgive me if it doesn’t make much sense as a story. I just want to see if anyone had any suggestions. Is it clear? Is my style of writing okay? Is this interesting? Any feedback is helpful. The names of the characters mentioned here are Sgt. Iago King and Nathan (Nate) Moore. Thank you all!

The cars on the ferris wheel were the usual beat-up plastic buckets, shaded from the sun by beat-up plastic umbrellas. They hung, swinging from the outer spokes of the great wheel, perilously high over the hard, dusty ground. Iago experienced a moment of nausea. Why people liked these things he would never understand.

Nate reappeared within a few minutes, and the man in black vanished before it occurred to Iago to watch where he went.

“Let’s talk, Sarge,” said Nate in a flat tone, a hint of a smirk in his voice. He motioned for Iago to step into the next empty car. Sgt. King hesitated a moment. He didn’t know how well he would fare: whether he could carry on an intelligent conversation or, should an argument arise, maintain his composure and stand, if he was suspended midair from a dubiously sturdy, rotating Erector set. Nate looked as if he was well aware of this fact, and waved encouragingly at the open entrance to the car. Iago took a deep breath, and in his most rigid, military stride, stepped into the bucket and sat down. Nate took the opposite bench, and the wheel slowly creaked upward.

For several minutes their conversation consisted of silent stares, each trying to size up the other. Both were doubting their knowledge of the other’s mind, wondering what would be the result of this conversation. Nate’s face disclosed nothing; that, in addition to the harrowing rotation of the ferris wheel, put Iago ill at ease. With all that had gone on in the past few days, his once-sure knowledge of Nate’s personality and motives had evaporated, and Sgt. King had no idea what to expect of this encounter. There was a subconscious hope, on his part, that Nate would be able to offer a rational explanation to justify what he had done, or, better yet, deny it entirely, say he’d been framed. In this, however, Iago was doomed to disappointment.

The wheel had slowly completed its first revolution and their plastic gondola had begun its second ascension before either spoke. It was Iago who broke the silence, leaving the single syllable “Why?” hanging between them, a question Nate took his time in answering.

“Look down there,” Nate instructed. “You see all those people? They’re all people, too, just like those kids.” Iago obeyed and, against his better instincts, looked down to the ground, which was fast slipping away beneath him, and all the happy people at the carnival unaware that they were the subject of a twisted demonstration. “If you’ll notice,” Moore continued, once reasonably sure he had Iago’s attention fixed on the people below, “The farther away from them you get, the smaller they appear. You can’t tell exactly what they’re doing or hear what they’re saying. You can’t see their faces. All those details that define them as individuals disappear.”

Iago felt a slight chill, despite the heat, not knowing what Moore might say next, not really wanting to find out. Their car was nearly at the top of the wheel when it eased to a stop. They swung slightly, alarmingly high above the ground, and Sgt. King’s attention was momentarily disengaged from Nate as he thought he might be sick. Iago recovered quickly, and Nate started talking again, his tone cool, even, and detached.

“And when you’re all the way up here, all those people are just little colored dots.” Nate paused and Iago looked over at him. Nathan Moore’s expression was placid, unfathomable, unreadable, unemotional. There was another long silence between them as the distant sounds of the carnival drifted quietly up to their little plastic bucket.

“Iago, let me ask you a question. You don’t have to answer me, but think about it and be honest with yourself. If one of those little colored dots just . . .” he searched for the right way to say it, “. . . stopped moving . . . would you care? Would you care if one of those dots went away forever, if you had something to gain from it?”