annoying panel menu problem...stumped

[bsd.makisupa]

fresh install of gnome 2.10 on a 6.0RC1 box -- gnome installed from
ports.  All ports are current, yada,yada,yada...

Last night i was installing a large number of ports and now i have a
mysterious problem with the menu in the panel.  If you click on
"applications" it flashes the menu that it should and then it disapears.
'Places' and 'Desktop' work fine.  I killed the panel, deleted the panel
and recreated it, reinstalled the gnomepanel port, and combinations of
all the above.  I believe this happened when installing smeg (my
mistake, i see there is a better app at marcuscom) which i have since
deinstalled but my menu is still messed up.  This is quite
annoying....Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Much appreciated,

/mak