Hugh's Worthless Blog

I was not expecting it, but I received an unsolicited e-mail from mozilla.org today telling me that the latest version of Firefox was out, not just an update to 4.0.1, but the fully updated and just released version 5.0 . Although I have been quite happy with version 4 (especially over the bloated version 3), I felt compelled to try out the latest version. The big test -- Frontierville on Facebook! I play Frontierville as well as Farmville and Cityville on Facebook, and Frontierville must be the slowest Zynga game there is to play, especially with my overcrowded frontier with its many buildings, animals, trees and everything else. When Firefox 4.0 first came out, I was pleasantly surprised how much better it seemed to run Frontierville than Chrome did at the time, but now even Firefox 4.0 seems to run it slowly, even with our very fast Internet connection at the university (it is painfully slow at home over DSL.) So now I am trying Frontierville on Firefox 5 during lunchtime St. Lou...

Over the weekend I had some free time to sift through my junk mail, so I thought I would complain about the ridiculous offers I receive via our wonderful postal service. I first noticed that I had received a lovely letter from American Express congratulating me on being approved for a gold card: "Congratulations are in order. You've earned an important distinction - a Card that reflects your achievements and complements your life. A Card designed to reward you and bring you the extra service and privileges you require." "It's the American Express Gold Card, and you've been selected for Card membership with the annual fee waived your first year (a $125 value)." Wow, a $125 annual fee that is being waived for a year. What an honor! Does anybody really want that? That means in a year I get to pay them $125 per year for a credit card I do not need when all my other credit cards I own charge me no annual fee at all. They promise me 25,000 membership p...

A week ago Friday we saw a "For Sale" pop up on our street and now a second one has emerged, so it must be the summer house selling time in our neighborhood again. Ironically both these home were also for sale last spring but neither of them sold then, but this year they have both lowered the price a little bit, and with the improved economy hopefully one of them will sell. I will do my part by listing both of them here on my blog. The first one to pop up for sale is being sold by a tiny realty firm called "Consort Realty" (tied to Consort Homes builders ) and is listed at $469,900 after starting last year at $514K and being lowered later to $499K. This is definitely a better starting point since I see the house already has a offer, but unfortunately it is a contingency contract as listed on the CBGundaker site as "Contingent No Kickout".  I have posted a photo above that I clipped out of Google Streetview for the house, since I like that better than t...