firecat

Do you choose online delivery for bills and financial paperwork?

If so, what arrangements do you have set up for having those bills paid and that paperwork reviewed if you have a long illness and can't do it yourself? Or if you die?

This message brought to you by Wells Fargo, which informed me when I logged on today that it had changed my statement delivery option to "online only." I was able to change it back, but it pissed me off that they did it in an "opt out" manner like that.

I don't LIKE paperwork and would prefer to use online delivery for such things, but even though I would trust my partners to take good care of me if I got sick, that doesn't mean I want to give them full access to my email.

OMG, we've only got one more anime series in our Netflix queue. Please rec us some anime series! Here's some stuff we like and don't like:

Don't like:
Really silly and/or romance obsessed characters/plots (Jubei Chan is about our limit)
Plots that are really surreal or difficult to follow (we're watching Ergo Proxy, but it is a little past our comfort level)
Series that go on for more than ~30 episodes

Like:
Black Jack
Cowboy Bebop
Death Note
Gankutsuou
Genshiken
Ghost in the Shell: SAC
Hellsing
Kaze no Yojimbo
Last Exile
Macross, Macross Plus
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Outlaw Star
Princess 9
Samurai Champloo
Shakugan no Shana

The other day I was picking on posts that have unhelpful-to-me tips for handling depression. In this post I'll mention a helpful-to-me depression aid, and ask for some advice.

Helpful-to-me thing: http://boggletheowl.tumblr.com/
This is a depression support blog where a cartoon owl offers a lot of encouragement and a little bit of advice. Some of the people writing in say upsetting things and sometimes Boggle is a bit too sweet. But I find the high encouragement to advice ratio helpful. (When you're depressed, what are some helpful things for you?)

Advice request:
I used to e-socialize a lot via mailing lists. These days it seems all the topical activity that used to occur in mailing lists has moved to Facebook. I check Facebook once or twice a day. But I've noticed that I usually end up feeling worse afterward. Part of it is that people post so much bad news. And OK, I do belong to some groups there where the whole purpose is to post bad news. But it's not just those groups that make me feel bad. I guess I could just quit reading FB, or limit myself to reading only a few people I have no other way to connect with. But it would be nice if there were a less drastic option or some way to approach FB that doesn't get me all riled up. (Does this happen to you?)

I just finished an audiobook of Minion by L.A. Banks, which is book 1 of her Vampire Huntress series. I liked it because it has people of color as characters and because the vampires are mostly of the "intelligent evil" type, which I don't see a lot of in vampire novels these days. But I didn't like the ( minor spoilers ) I also didn't like that this book didn't wrap up. It ended right in the middle of the story.

Anyway, I'm trying to decide whether to read more of the series, and I just found out there are twelve books in all. I don't want to commit to reading twelve books, but if I knew that there was an ending somewhere in the first three books I would read the next one. If every book is going to end on a cliffhanger, I'm not going to read any more.

So, do you know if the first two or three books comprise a complete story? And what do you think of the series in general?

We just finished watching the first season of the TV series Dexter. We liked it but didn't love it. We heard somewhere that subsequent seasons weren't as good. If you've watched it, do you think it's worth watching the second season?

Also if you've read the first book of the novel series about the same character, how much loving detail is put into the ( tiny spoiler )

So here's what I want.
An ebook reader app.

• It works on both the iPod/iPad and Android smartphone.
• It stores books and bookmarks in the cloud so when I open the book on a different device, it remembers where I was.
• It also stores books and bookmarks locally so I don't need to have wireless access to use it.
• It lets me upload and store DRMed and non-DRMed epub format books.

Here's where my research has gotten me so far. These apps meet all the criteria except the one listed.

• Bluefire: Doesn't store bookmark data online.
• Google Books: Can't upload your own books, as far as I know.
• Kobo: Stores bookmark data online for books you get through its store, but not for books you upload.

Do you know any apps that fit all the criteria?

The OH and I recently finished re-watching Babylon 5 and finished watching the fourth season of Heroes. He informed me that our Netflix queue was getting a little thin on series and said I could suggest up to five series to put on the queue.

So what should we watch?

( detailed requirements )

My mother's sister in Florida passed away last week, and my parents want to adopt her miniature Schnauzer. My cousins in Florida are willing to arrange this, but none of us has any experience with it. Apparently there are services that will help transport an animal. Do you have experience with any such services? Do you recommend or dis-recommend any particular one? Tips/warnings?

Not crossposted.

The fonts on comment pages are too small for me to comfortably read. I can manually increase the size of the fonts in my browser, but I get sick of doing that for every page.

I have the appropriate setting checked (Comment Pages: View comment pages from your Reading Page in your own style) but comment pages are not displayed in my style. They are displayed in the Site Scheme style.

Is there any way for me to either
1. Get comment pages in my style
2. Change the colors and fonts of the Site Scheme?

If not are there plans to fix this?

For folks reading this who have had their poetry published - where do you submit your poetry (and, for extra credit, why there)?