LovingMother

I had to pay a medical bill late, but the facility had already sent my bill to a debt collector. The bill states that delinquent accounts are charged 1% interest on the balance per month. Our balance had been $48 and I paid it at approximately 60 days past due.

The bill collector originally sent me a bill for the the amount of $73.08 and then another bill for 25.08 acknowledging the receipt of my payment (which I paid to the facility, not to the debt collector). The 8 cents is listed as interest and the $25 as "other" and is listed as part of the original account. I have asked what the $25 is for, but the debt collector refuses to tell me and the medical facility tells me my account with them is paid. I have sent two letters to the debt collector disputing the amount but they just keep sending me notices without acknowledging the dispute.

Is there an agency I should report this debt collector to? Other than documenting everything, are there other steps I should take?

In the short movie, Kino no Tabi - Life Goes On, after killing a woman (presumably the first time she's had to kill) Kino cuts her hair short and returns to her teacher. When her teacher comments that she likes her hair, Kino replies, "yes, I like it as well" and uses the masculine form of the pronoun "I". What is the significance of these actions?

I have a collection of GIF images with transparent backgrounds for a project I want to work on. When I open them in Photoshop, they retain their transparency. When I attempt to layer them into my project, they suddenly gain a solid white background.

I layer the images by selecting them in their own screen and dragging them to the project. Is there some other way I should be accomplishing this that will retain the transparency of the image?

I am interested in learning more about the shale oil reserves in the Green River Formation in Colorado and Utah. I have done some research already, but am hoping that you may provide sources I missed. Websites, books, and report sources would be much appreciated.

We have public water and on occasion it smells bad. Sometimes this makes our clean laundry smell bad, though it is usually bearable.

The other day, I washed a load of towels, undergarments, and t-shirts and it came out incredibly smelly. I waited until a day when the water didn't smell so bad and washed it again, but it still smelled.

I have washed the load again using baking soda instead of detergent and vinegar in place of fabric softener (this was how I used to get the smell out of cloth diapers). This load of laundry still smells awful.

Does anybody have any other ideas I can try to get the smell out of my clothes and towels?

SciFi.com is running a hero animator where you can make your own hero.

http://www.scifi.com/superhero/game/

Here's one I made:

http://www.scifi.com/superhero/game/?txtName=VOELA...

On my MediaCenter PC, I have an interactive program guide that automatically updates, I can pause live TV, I can set an entire series to record even if the schedule changes with a simple push of a button, I can set it to record only new episodes of the shows I like, etc. I have the same basic features TiVo charges a monthly fee for, but once I purchased my PC, I had no further charges. Why, then, is there a monthly fee for TiVo?