I think I found the problem.

I was talking go a woman this morning who asked me about this Nvidia
icon in her Admin menu. I looked and sure enough, it was back on my menu
again too. It happened after the update yesterday morning. I dont know
why that keeps downloading and installing but I have a ATI card and Im
not installing it.

After removing it and rebooting, I now have desktop effects back and
probably flash too.