[Ethereum] How to get tokens out of a metamask account

You need to make an account at an exchange like Poloniex or Kraken. They will then provide you with an address where you can deposit Ether. You can also use Shapeshift, which allows you to exchange ETH for BTC or other cryptocurrencies.

Then just click on the account in Mist that you want to send from, and click the send button up at the top. Send the ether to the address that the exchange provided.

Note that Shapeshift does not currently support sending from smart contract wallets, so send to an account first, then to Shapeshift.

See this question for the difference between accounts and wallets.

Usually the ether amount stored in the contract can be received after executing the suicide option (which flushes the balance of the contract sending everything to the contract's owner address). After that stage the contract becomes inactive (and any ether sent to its address is lost - gets burned), so the contract stops executing the functions coded inside it.

This option of course might be coded inside the contract since its creation because the contract, once created, cannot be modified in the blockchain. Once you kill a contract no gas will be used if you send a payment to its address (as functions inside it are not executed) however if you still see earlier pending transactions (which is highly unlikely) it means that the transactions were not yet mined because of too low gas being provided.

This reminds me of certain situation explained by someone earlier. It is when one tries to send a transaction (with too low gas fee) but because the network doesn't confirm it in a short time (it gets queued) the user tries again and again (testing with various gas fees included). At a certain moment, one transaction is accepted, the balance decreases with the corresponding amount, so everything seems perfect and the user is happy and stops trying to send again. However, if at some moment he funds again his address, it is possible that one pending transaction to be eventually accepted (mined) and the user see again the same amount disappearing from its address (like unexpected double spending). I say it again, such thing is unlikely to happen (I did not experienced myself nor I would want to happen to me) so I just describe it in theory. However, if you think you can check the pending transactions from your account you could link that with such a situation.