Sounds like a pretty 'hands off' manager and a bad one who doesn't (1) know on a daily basis what you're currently working on and the rough ETA to having it finished, (2) have ready a prioritised list of tasks to schedule to you or your co-workers. They should promote you immediately and let you take over because you're doing their job.

I've been an opera fan for years and years (before it was completely free, I bought the damn thing!). I really like 9.5, but it has issues with some sites I go to, that 9.27 didn't. The new skin sucks. And WHY oh WHY can't I use an external feed reader when I click the feed icon in the url box? FireFox 2 was a clunky slow browser for me, so I stuck with Opera for the speed. FF3 is just as responsive now, I can get all my Opera features I want with extensions, and I can use an external feed reader. I wanted to stay with Opera, but the usability didn't let me.