Question: Let me clarify. My machine had Ubuntu 12.04.2 LTS. Well it crashed and now I'm burning the 32-bit version (yes I'm sure my machine is 32-bit) of 13.04 iso onto my flash drive, using a windows vista computer.

When I plug in my drive into my ubuntu computer and hit the power button, what do I do? Is there a secret key I need to push on boot-up for the option to boot from a usb drive?

Thanks, S

Answer: 
Assuming your using gnome desktop. The applet crashed and cant recover. I had a similar problem with Zorin 6 (based on Ubuntu 12.04). To fix this I right 

* clicked on the menu bar and select dock preference
* Then select applets
* Find your menu applet here (for me it was title "yet another menu applet") and should be near the bottom
* Now you can place a working menu app where the old menu app was (drag and drop)
* and you can remove the dead menu app from the bar.

If this doesn't work just comment on the answer and I can try to get a more specific answer.
To start, can you post your /var/log/syslog to see if awn-menu-applet is reporting any errors. Next, have you attempted running sudo awn-menu-applet or its corresponding command to attempt to reinitialize in the terminal? If these produce no fruits then I'm out of any beneficial ideas.