Orders of the Day - Happy New Year, all! Let the Rideau Hall stakeout begin!

Bad news for all those pundits and prognosticators who were looking forward to wiling away the first few days of the new year engaged in leisurely musings about the upcoming cabinet shuffle: Apparently, all will be revealed later this afternoon. Way to cut short the suspense building, Prime Minister!

According to the pre-spin that was emanating from the usual senior government insider suspects, it will be a relatively minor ministerial rearrangement, with no more than six portfolios changing hands. That sentiment was echoed in an on-the-record tweet from PMO communications director Dimitri Soudas earlier this morning, in which he also confirmed that the wee sma shufflette would take place at 2pm.

Anyway, for anyone who wants to play along at home, here's the current roster of ministers and cabinet committee membership lists. The only file that we know for sure -- or, at least, as sure as anyone can be about anything in this town -- is up for grabs is Environment -- which was, of course, left vacant when Jim Prentice sauntered off to greener private sector pastures last month, and has since been under the interim stewardship of Government House Leader John Baird.

There was some chatter last night that James Moore could be tapped to take over that post, thus freeing up Canadian Heritage, and everyone seems to think Julian Fantino is bound for glory, or at least a seat at the big kids' table. (I'm sticking with my original prediction: Minister of State for Something To Do With Crime, but With No Actual Responsibilities Beyond Turning Up At Photo Ops and Looking Tough.)

For some reason -- probably because he's seen as a favourite of the PM -- Peter Kent's name keeps surfacing as well, as does that of Christian Paradis. Really, the pre-shuffle speculation game just isn't the same without having Jim Prentice to slot into every conceivable position, up to and including finance minister.

For full coverage of today's shuffle, keep your eyes glued to the ticker. Oh, and before I forget, let's all give a warm welcome to the latest former prime ministerial chief of staff to sign onto the twitterverse: Guy Giorno, who seems to have a lot to say about ... well, mostly us-the-media so far, but I'm sure he'll expand his repertoire as soon as he gets that off his chest.