As for the "*", it has two meanings:
- first is "No reserve", when the star appears on either buy or sell price (not both). It means that too many people bid in this direction and Bitcoinica is blocking placing more bids in that direction, because they wouldn't have reserves to pay up if they did.
- second, when the star appears on BOTH prices - it means that Bitcoinica had trouble contacting MtGox API and hence the prices are outdated. They block trades until the communication is resumed to avoid slippage. This usually dissapears after ~10 seconds.
"Zhoutonged" is a slang for getting force liquidated - when your position has taken so many losses that there is a possibility of your account balance to go negative. Force liquidation prevents that, but it leaves you with almost no funds, so you this is something you want to avoid at all costs
.