>This doesn't sound correct. If you have 2.6.11-r11 installed, then alsa-lib
>>will find and depend on that, even if the ebuild is no longer in portage (look
>>in /var/db/pkg/sys-kernel/, the ebuild is kept there until you unmerge it)
>>  
>>

$ ls /var/db/pkg/sys-kernel/gentoo-sources-2.6.11-r11
...
gentoo-sources-2.6.11-r11.ebuild
...
$ emerge -Dupt world

These are the packages that I would merge, in reverse order:

Calculating world dependencies ...done!
...
[nomerge      ] games-arcade/blobwars-1.04
[nomerge      ]  media-libs/sdl-ttf-2.0.7
[nomerge      ]   media-libs/libsdl-1.2.8-r1
[nomerge      ]    media-sound/esound-0.2.34
[nomerge      ]     media-libs/alsa-lib-1.0.9
[ebuild  NS   ]      sys-kernel/gentoo-sources-2.6.11-r8
...

*shrugs