Hidey-doodey, campers! It's that special day of the year once more, when all the peoples of the world join together in peaceful unison to drink Irn Bru and eat fried pizzas in celebration of this unique event: My birthday (which was actually 20 years ago, but try telling that to a rampaging mob of revellers). Of course, it is traditional to move on to hard liquor as the day turns gradually to the period of darkness which almost invariably follows, and then bop thy neighbour on the head in order to restore customary enmities. I am, naturally, all too aware that many people choose to merge this celebration with the previously low-key Hogmanay, or 'New Year's Eve', in order to reduce the number of hardcore December festivities to a more manageable two, which is fair enough. All I ask is that you get at least slightly tipsy - or, if you are underage, completely legless - and start swearing out the window, before the polis are called by distressed passers by to shoot you repeatedly with a taser until medium rare.
(Myself? I don't really drink that much any more, largely because of a certain incident at a party that left three people in traction and me without facial hair).

And now to address your nagging question: Why would Firefly be cancelled? I don't know the answer to that any more than I know why the Earth is an oblate spheroid, as opposed to the infinitely preferable small stellated dodecahedron. Let's have a bash at another question: Why the name change? It's obvious really - those folks at Lucas Online just won't stop badgering me about an interview, and I figure that if I keep changing my blog title then they will become disoriented and go hassle other people. And maybe call off their badgers. After acquiring the necessary permits, I began to think about possible alternatives. I considered something like "A Slice of Paradise" (because of the Celtic connection), but that sounds like a low-fat desert for people on those hilarious diets I keep hearing about. Then I thought maybe "Dropped Shipments", but for me that carries mental images of speedboats and helicopters and perilous mullets bathed in the harsh light of the Florida sun. However, it did bring to mind one of Greedo's lines, "Jabba has no time for smugglers who drop their shipments at the first sign of an Imperial cruiser." I decided to change it a bit rather than using a direct quote, 'cause I'm a rebel blogger and that's just how I roll. So in a way, I could be saying that my blog would make Han Solo drop his shipment, which is obviously some sort of crude euphemism, and I can only apologise.
For those of you not keeping track, I have now sailed under four banners (that I can remember):
The Happy Rainbow Club
Jinn and Tonic
The Albion Lounge
The First Sign of Trouble
The good news for my long-time followers - and any frequenters of charity shops - is that merchandise featuring the early names sells like hot cakes. Hot cakes with cocaine in them. So if you have any (merchandise, not cocaine), then proceed to eBay immediately and flog it all in a disgusting orgy of capitalist greed. It's what I would have wanted. If I were dead.

And now to the key business of the day: Spitting the half-chewed gum of a hundred hours of partially cogent thought onto the pristine sidewalk of the blogs, in flagrant disregard of regulations specifically intended to discourage such actions.

I don't wish to alarm you, but it will be Christmas soon. In a spasm of festive spirit, I have linked a funny web page that I stumbled upon after a gruelling ordeal of mouse clicking and sporadic typing. You may not like Something Awful, but even if that is the case, I prostrate myself before you now and plead that you turn the light of your collective countenance upon these images, that they might appear humorous to you and so make you chortle. I do warn you that one of them features Nien Nunb with baubles for eyes, and simply gazing upon it may cause permanent psychological damage. I know. I see the shapes moving in the dark. I also counted two naughty words (page 11), but I think that seeing Vader dressed in bunny ears and pink slippers is worth the paying the price of your mortal soul, since you were probably going to hell anyway for stealing that cookie. Oh, I saw you, and I looked on with stern and unsympathetic disapproval.

I hope you got a good laugh out of that, or at least one of those things where you smirk and emit a quiet burst of air through your nose. I suspect many of us require cheering up now as the shopicide season looms into view - accompanied by the uncontrollable haemorrhaging of bank accounts - or because you've picked up the winter sniffles. Laughter is the best medicine, after all. Unless you're really ill, in which case you should probably call the doctor. I mean, don't just start laughing if you've got a punctured lung, as that will certainly not improve your condition and may well exacerbate the problem. I trust that none of you regularly puncture your lungs whilst on the blogs, because if so then we may have to discuss your computer privileges. This is a good thing, because if you can stay puncture-free for a week or so then you might even get to bear witness to my next project. In my cliff top fortress (5 bedrooms, kitchen and dining area, TV room, garage, vivisection laboratory, heated pool) I am creating something so terrifying, so utterly horrific, that it will strike fear into the hearts of the sturdiest voles and other assorted rodents noted for their weak cardiovascular systems. I don't want to give anything away, so your only clue is that I've done something similar before, and it almost caused the collapse of three Fortune 500 companies and the financial ruin of their shareholders. Think about it.

Maybe this is the festive delirium talking, but this seems like an appropriate time to for a spot of token appreciation. As such, I would like to thank the following sources for directly or indirectly providing 96.7890486% of all my material:
rhymezone.com - for the help with limerick-related homonyms. You wouldn't believe how much rhyme there could possibly be in one zone until you've visited this one.
Monty Python and all it has spawned (The Simpsons et al.) - for the inspiration behind many a whacky and/or zany impulse. Ni, indeed.
somethingawful.com - for introducing me to the breed of sarcasm and snark that can only exist within the festering bowels of a website dedicated solely to robbing all aspects of life of any lingering pretence of dignity. The b#####ds.
Calvin & Hobbes, samandfuzzy.com and Weebl & Bob - for that particularly joyful brand of whimsical humour which can switch between moving and silly without warning. Besides, when is donkey poop not funny? Well, yeah, obviously at a funeral.
Microsoft Word - for its magical synonym generator, which I use at least several hundred times an entry. It is an exceptionally superior contrivance.
Various news media - for bringing to my front room the great spectrum of humanity in all its wondrous diversity, and then exposing its greed and stupidity for my amusement. Present company excepted.
All of you (especially you there on the computer) - for typing funny things and inane things and strange things and touching things and things that make me feel hungry, and for just generally being there in a non-specific capacity. My friends.

Every time I milk the teat of entertainment until dry and raw, new ideas lodge themselves in my head like a flock of migratory birds seeking a warm, hollow space in which to roost for the winter. Even so, I think I will give this whole malarkey a rest for a while, as I require 100% concentration to eat the meat of flightless birds without choking to death, due to a rare and implausible genetic condition. I always have to pick up the slack from other, less committed family members as it is, and my mum insists on giving me seconds even if I don't really want more. She says that my ability to consume vast amounts of food is due to having "hollow legs". I have my doubts as to the physiological soundness of that theory, as her view is in conflict with most - if not all - authorities on the human digestive process. However, I can't really complain, since I have an abnormally fast metabolism, and therefore never put on permanent weight no matter how much I eat or how little I exercise, much to the chagrin of many women and the consternation of medical professionals around the globe. Yes, the hate is welling in you now. Take your chocolate éclair. Strike me down with all your anger, and your journey towards the tubby side will be complete!

You know, being 20 doesn't sit particularly comfortably with me. Something about that number brings on frightening apparitions of responsibility and obligation. As I sit here slapping the keyboard of my computer with open palms in the hopeful optimism of producing something intelligible, I occasionally wonder whether there is anything else I should be doing. I glance briefly out the window. Nope, it's all ticking over quite nicely. Here comes the postie to deliver the mail, and there goes the bin man with the rubbish, and there's a mechanised battalion of Stormtroopers sweeping the neighbourhood for entrenched Rebel units. Uh-oh, Trilafon time again.

Right, on yer bikes, the lot of you. No, I resolutely refuse to ever, ever bring one of these to a satisfactory conclusion.
A couple of choons to send you on your way? I suppose I could manage that, for auld times sake.