Benefits Buzz: Computer crimes investigation underway after 68 …
Authorities say a burglar alarm went off Friday…but Blue Cross didn’t report the possible theft until making a visual inspection days later. Sgt. Jerri Weary with the Chattanooga Police Department says “they could have been taken …  read more…

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida to lay off upto 150 …
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida plans to lay off as many as 150 employees during the last three months of this year, said spokesman John Herbkersman on Tuesday. The cuts represent 2.5 percent of the workforce at Blue Cross, …  read more…

amx1047's Truckalogue: A Happy Little Story (Concerning Blue Cross)
A Happy Little Story (Concerning Blue Cross). QualComm Messages between myself and Fillinguy, who was working the guard shack at AMX last night along with his golden retreiver, Brody: Tuesday, 10/06/09 17:28 – ME: Wanna tell u this happy little story. I didn’t know we had to file our own drug claims, so I’ve been spending $450+ every month for Plavix, Crestor, etc. and thinking our insurance didn’t help much on prescriptions. When I finally found out, …  read more…

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Group Plans Protest Of Anthem Blue Cross (WMUR New Hampshire)
New Hampshire members of a national health advocacy group are protesting Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield.  read more…

Health-care costs headed up for Iowa (Quad-City Times)
DES MOINES – The Iowa Executive Council has agreed to approve a significant increase in the premium rates the state pays next year for some employee health-care plans administered by Wellmark Blue Cross/Blue Shield.  read more…

Wallenpaupack claims Class AAA tennis title (The Scranton Times-Tribune)
Wallenpaupack overcame the loss of a starter in pre-match warmups, hanging on for a three-set victory at No. 1 doubles to clinch the Lackawanna Tennis League Class AAA title with a 3-2 win over visiting Abington Heights on Monday. It was Wallenpaupack’s  read more…

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Open Question: Writers: What do you think of this character? Is he a Gary Stu?
I have a character in mind for a story I am writing, but it is only in the planning stage at the moment. It involves vampires (I know it’s overdone at the moment, but I have asked a question and so far all answers say it is nothing like Twilight). For one thing, the vampires in my idea were never human; they are a separate species that must drink human blood to aid their metabolism so they can digest their food. They are generally stronger and faster than humans, but not by too much, and age and die at roughly the same pace, though vampires generally live a couple years longer.

The full story summary is here:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AoMexk_n1IwknWiEWIK8R9Lty6IX;_ylv=3?qid=20090929020311AAfW1OQ

Anyway, onto the character. His current name is Jack, but that will be changed later when I find a better one.

Okay, Jack is basically a sixteen year old vampire banished from his group for killing another vampire in a rage, he leaves gladly, takes up a human identity and starts attending a school in remote England. The area is well known for having heaps of vampires that prey on people so no one goes out at night unless they really have to, and basically Jack poses as a human, attends school and ends up hunting his own kind and killing them to protect the people. The story is set in current times.

I would like to know if you consider him a Gary Stu.

Okay, personality first:

Jack is from a coven of vampires in rural England, near a group of villages. After leaving the coven he wanders into one, claiming to have been orphaned by vampires and is then taken into an orphanage.

He hates vampires, despite being one, and wishes he didn’t have to kill people to survive. Jack is somewhat stoic at times but the right trigger can make him laugh for ages, and he cares deeply for his sister, though they have different views on being vampires. He can be pretty brutal when he kills them, but when it’s a friend or family member he had in the group, he is gentler but still kills them to protect humans.

He can be charming if he needs to but most of the time he is chirpy and a little flirty. He is easily angered, however, and both human and vampire alike are cautious not to invoke his wrath.

He loves dogs, considering them to be a noble animal, and also finds foxes to be cuddly. They are a huge weakness, and he would sit for hours scratching their tummies. He couldn’t ride a horse to save his life and is frightened of crossing running water because of the purity. He is easily distracted and has a habit of walking into walls, and has fallen down stairs at school a couple of times, once breaking his arm and on the other dragging another person down too.

Though he hates having to feed off humans, he kills one every so often because he needs their blood to survive. He starves himself between feeds so he kills as few people as possible.

Physically, he is about 5”10’, and has tanned skin. His eyes are a deep blue and his hair is a wavy, creamy blonde colour that brushes against the base of his neck. He is a bit skinny but still quite strong, though not superstrong. He has a few scars on his body. He can fight with daggers and short swords, and uses a gun if necessary. He has some skill in hand to hand combat, necessary because otherwise he would never be able to capture any human prey. He can retract his fangs to appear normal and at full power he can burst a pair of black batlike wings from his back. He is agile enough to scale some walls, but because he is also somewhat clumsy he falls on his butt two thirds of the time.

Okay, sorry for the long question. :-) Any answers are appreciated!
Oh, and a Gary Stu is “a fictional character with overly idealized and hackneyed mannerisms, lacking noteworthy flaws, and primarily functioning as wish-fulfillment fantasies for their authors or readers.”

So, what do you think? Is Jack a Gary Stu?
Yeah, I know he’s not the conventional type of vampire, he’s not undead, he ages, etc, but I still count him as a vampire.

I forgot to mention it, but he has the main features of a vampire: he loses his powers in the sun (contrary to popular belief that sunlight could kill Dracula, this was what happened to him in the sun, too), he has fangs, MUST suck human blood, animal blood will not do, and has a degree of transforming ability (the wings). He has a debilitating phobia of running water. He will not touch it, so uses a basin to wash his hands etc.

He kills other vampires because when they feed they are brutal and do some unimaginable things to their victims. His first vampire victim had shoved a woman’s face into her mother’s blood. After meeting a girl who had lost both parents to a brutal attack, but was too afraid to take revenge, he did it for her and began to kill them every night.

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Voting Question: do your parents need to claim me on their taxes if I’m on their health insurance?
I am a full time student and I am on my parents health insurance. I have my own job and when they claim me on their taxes it kills my tax return. They have Blue Cross and Blue Shield, so I’m not sure if its required by them but everyone that I have talked to that are on their parents health insurance are not claimed on their parents taxes. I was just wondering if this was something that was necessary for the insurance company.

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Resolved Question: Shouldn’t Blue Cross consider a woman’s bleeding breast to be an emergency?
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS 5) ? When Daly City resident Rosalinda Miran-Ramirez woke up one morning in April to find her left breast bleeding from the nipple, she panicked. The shirt she had been sleeping in was saturated with blood. So her husband took her to the emergency room at Seton Medical Center.

“In my mind I know something serious is going on,” said Miran-Ramirez. “I need to see a doctor.”

Doctors found a tumor and initially told her she had breast cancer. A biopsy later proved that assumption false; the tumor was benign.

But Miran-Ramirez said the real shock came when her insurance company, Blue Shield of California HMO, which had initially approved the claim for the emergency room visit, reversed course and sent her a new bill three months later requiring her to pay the total charges for that visit: $2,791.00.

Why? Documents from Blue Shield indicate the company had reviewed the case and determined Miran-Ramirez “reasonably should have known that an emergency did not exist.”

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business Anthem Blue Cross is ordered to repay customer $5,700
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Death news, killing videos, dying info, murder info DEATH-PAC Presents: Self-Care for Blue Cross (VIDEO)
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p2 - Twitter Search Live in MD, get Empire Blue Cross/Blue Shield (NY). Pay for everything up front. Cross fingers when submitting claims. #p2 #hcr #hco9 #tcot
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#tcot - Twitter Search Live in MD, get Empire Blue Cross/Blue Shield (NY). Pay for everything up front. Cross fingers when submitting claims. #p2 #hcr #hco9 #tcot
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Twitter How many med claims are denied in Calif: Kaiser Permanente — 28.3% Blue Cross — 27.9 %
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AfterDowningStreet.org - Bush-Cheney Trials in '09 “California’s Real Death Panels”–Data Reveals California’s Private Insurers Deny 21% of Claims
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Twitter called both my senators with info that private insurers in CA ( eg Pacificare, Blue Cross, Kaiser) deny 40 – 28% of claims per Nurses Assn.
Posted by onelove via Twitter  

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