Gentoo is now in it’s 2006.1 release as of today, and I came across this while trying to update my profile without syncing and emerge the latest portage first;
* Warning, the Surgeon General has determined that using profiles before * they have been released can cause a multitude of medical problems, * including, but not limited to: * Nausea, diarrhea, intestinal blockage, mental defects, anal leakage, * erectile disfunction, blindness, and death * Use of this profile should be undertaken solely at your own risk!
Who says geeks doesn’t have sense of humors? 
Anyway, upgrading to this profile is fairly simple;
# rm /etc/make.profile # ln -s /usr/portage/profiles/default-linux/x86/2006.1/ /etc/make.profile # emerge --sync # emerge --update --newuse --deep world
And alternatively I run this in another terminal, which would speedup the whole process;
# emerge --update --newuse --deep world --fetchonly
