Slightly Uncomfortable Signs of Adulthood:

The realization that, while riding in a car, the driver of that car is not necessarily better at driving than you are.

It was true. He was simply a man who didn't know what to do with himself, for he didn't know yet who he was. It's sometimes easier to find a job than to find oneself and John hadn't yet gotten around to doing the first. How could he know who he was? Some find themselves through joy, some through suffering and some through toil. Johnny had till now tried nothing but whisky. A process which left him feeling like somebody new every day.

Nelson Algren, The Man With The Golden Arm

Oh man: According to Errol Morris' website, his first three films, as well as his TV show, are coming out on DVD next month. Of course, it also seems to suggest that A Brief History of Time is already available, which Amazon disputes. Still, I am pleased and excited. I'm a big fan.

Re Arctic Sovereignty Issues

Race is on to claim the Arctic Circle

Deep inside the Arctic Circle, hundreds of kilometres beyond the frontier of human habitation, a solitary red flag with a white cross flies in the freezing winds, its pole hammered into the unyielding rock of Hans Island. Next to it, a plaque tells the world the Vikings have returned.

The tiny island, a hostile wedge of rock poised between the north-west corner of Greenland and Canada's Ellesmere Island, where winter temperatures plummet to 40C below, is normally home to a seal colony and the occasional polar bear.

Because thinking about writing a novel is much easier than actually writing it, I've spent a lot of time lately wondering about how exactly to put together a story that involves this particular pet obsession. I mean, sure, the Canadian Rangers are charming, with their combination lone ice cowboy/cold Boy Scouts aesthetic, but aside from trekking back and forth, flag in tow, what exactly is there for them to do? (Well, arresting smugglers, in that essentially abandoned story of mine; but beyond that.) What we need are more arctic military units.

These days the Vikings do not come in long ships. The Danish navy sent HDMS Vaedderen, a 3500-tonne frigate with a reinforced hull, into the disputed channel that forms the maritime border between Canada and Greenland, the world's largest island and a semi-independent Danish territory, and more importantly, only 804km south of the North Pole.

And the elite Sirius Patrol, a contingent of specially trained Arctic soldiers, completed a hazardous patrol to the north-east shore of Greenland. The success of the Vaedderen and Sirius missions in proving their ability to operate so far north has given Denmark the confidence to stake its claim to the North Pole.

OK, that will do. The Sirius Patrol! Pynchon couldn't make up a better name. Of course, the elite Sirius Patrol sounds a little downscale these days; fourteen guys defending a huge chunk of the biggest island on the planet. But the Canadians at least believe polar force protection is a must, and I expect other nations with similar interests will come to similar conclusions. I wonder if Danish Polar Explorations HQ has some great James Bondish design elements, at least?

In the lobby of her offices at the Geological Survey of Greenland and Denmark there is a mechanical reminder of what they are working towards. A giant Foucault's pendulum is tracking the rotation of the Earth around its South and North Pole axis.

This begins to write itself, almost. I'd heard that Denmark was eager to lay claim to the Pole itself, but I didn't know Russia had on eye on the same spot.

Beneath the pack ice are the nuclear submarines of Russia, patrolling the dark water. Moscow has made a failed attempt to stake its own claim to the Lomonosov Ridge, and thereby to the North Pole.

. . . . .

The race to claim new territory is, in large part, about regaining long-lost status. "It is all surreal," says Ole Kvaerno, director of the Institute of Strategy and Political Science at the Royal Danish Defence College. "It really strikes me that various nations have begun to make these impossible territorial claims ... What will be the next territorial claim: space?"

Incidently, space enthusiasts are really blue lately.

Oh, yeah, and I want to write a screenplay and finish my comic book script this year, too; as well as find my copy of the reissued In Rock by The Minus 5. Where did I leave that, anyway?

International Year of Wary Enthusiasm

There are some things I've got to do this year, and some things I want to do, and here they are, in no particular order, but jazzed up with bullet points.

• Write my undergraduate philosophy thesis. This leads to graduating college. It also happens to be the most important thing here, but after this the order is random, I promise.
• Write most of the first draft of a novel by June 19. By then I'll be 25.
  
• Do more with Defeat the Fortress. I'd like to at least double my output of media-related snark there.
• Read more classic novels. Which? I've yet to decide. I may do the National Book Awards.
  
• Watch more movies. Oscar winners, maybe, though some of those look pretty dire.
• Read at least one biography about each American President, in order. This sounds interesting, and I should read more history in general.
• Cook more meals. Which is to say, any meals.
• Write a story that I think is genuinely publishable, and then see if anyone wants it.
• Write an academic, philosophic-type paper on some subject, and do the same.

There are some other things I'd like to do this year, like buy more neat things, but I figure that will more or less take care of itself, no resolving required. And then there are a few things I need to do now, like my laundry, or changing the oil in my car, but those aren't very grand ambitions, plus "This year I will take care of basic maintenance issues" makes me sound intensely lazy.