I'm using dapper 20060521 and gnome-panel 2.14.1-0ubuntu13. I experience the same problem, sometimes after starting gnome the date and time appears misaligned to the left of the mixer icon in the top panel (see screenshot in attachment). Normally it should be located between the mixer icon and the logout icon. Ocassionaly the date and time doesn't appear at all, only the gray space between the mixer and logout icon is visible then. This is probably caused by a recent update because I did not experience this problem on dapper a month ago.
** Attachment added: "Misaligned date and time" http://librarian.launchpad.net/2770302/misaligned.png -- [Dapper] GNOME Panel icons (on right side) move apparently randomly on session start in some situations https://launchpad.net/bugs/44082 -- desktop-bugs mailing list desktop-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/desktop-bugs
