linux 107 Posting Shark

Ubuntu Linux 8.04.
System > Preferences > Appearance

A few issues.

1. The application uses 100% of my CPU until I kill it with killall -9 gnome-appearance-properties . Just pressing close does nothing.

2. All of my theme, control setup, etc. thumbnails and previews don't show up at all. A few do, but not many.

3. On all dark themes, the menu text (and clock, etc) are all black on black (or too dark on black).

Thanks in advance.

-- Alex

(screenshots attached showing a few problems)

EDIT: This problem is resolved when logging into my "test" account. Any other account besides alex works flawlessly. I don't want to have to use a new account, though.