That happened to me once, if you have a p2p client like Kazaa, Limewire, or Morpheus, it doesn't work well with continuum. If I had it installed, and went into continuum, the graphics would be all messed up. I would see 2 lines of chat like you did, and the ships and walls would be all off-colored and junk. So I unistalled Morpheus, and no more problems.