Desktop not working anymore... help?

This has got to be the weirdest most annoying thing ever. My desktop has stopped working? Stopped working? As in how?

I cannot click on it anymore, meaning I cannot switch to the finder in the menu bar after clicking on it, I cannot drag anything there and I cannot ctrl(right) click on it.
I 've done the obvious with repairing permissions and zapping the pram but it still doesn't work. I can create a folder by going into the desktop through the finder but it won't show on the actual desktop.
If you don't have any clue as to how this can be resolved, condolences are appreciated nevertheless.

 

Ok, so I created another account to check whether this is a system-wide problem and guess what, it isn't. The other acc worked fine. This throws me off even more.
I guess the moment it stopped working was when I disabled the display of the drives on the desktop. Now even if I enable the display they won't show anymore...

 

The thing is that if I would create a new acc all the permissions would be screwed up. The only thing that would work is to back up everything to my ext. HD and then put it on the new account. But if I am doing this kind of thing I might as well go ahead and do a clean install. The thing is that I really have no time for this one way or the other.
This is definitely the weirdest bug ever... thanks for help.

 

Yeah, that was my first thought too, even before relaunching, zapping the pram and repairing permissions... thanks for the help though.

 

It works again. The solution was the same one as to so many other problems but I keep on forgetting it... I should write that down somewhere and attach it to my forehead
Anyway, long story short, trashing the preferences and restarting did it.