ANOTHER UPDATE: Along these lines, I’d suggest everyone check out this comment at Slashdot. The rest of the thread is a real corker, too.
UPDATE: I’ve caught some flack for this post, and rightly so. Despite two decades of life online, and getting caught in dozens of flamewars, it still escapes me from time to time that people can’t see the wry grin on my face as I type. I’m coming off as pretty anti-American, and I can see that, and it wasn’t my intention. The bit at the end about not wanting to be American stands, though. I want to be Canadian. If I wanted to be American, I’d move there. Since I don’t want to be American, and the web sites won’t let me be Canadian, I’m choosing Europe. You see, I still spell it “colour”.
I don’t get too steamed up about American sites that ignore the fact that the North American continent actually has three countries in total, not one. Its pretty standard, and you chuckle, point out that Americans see the world as “us, the French, and the people we’re bombing,” and you move on.
It does bug me, though, when I go to the Apple Canada store, and read that the new iPod Radio Remote “supports FM stations from 87.5 to 107.9MHz (in both the US and European standards)”. Radio here in the forgettable frozen north also covers the same bands, guys. You’re the Canadian Store, you should know that.
Some day, maybe, Canadian web sites for Yank companies will get some proper operating budgets. Until that day, I guess we’re European. I sure don’t want to be American.
Meh. I am not offended by this post at all! In fact, I am (in some ways) the reciprocal of your troubles. I work for Canadians and am on a Canadian server (even though my office is in the US). Sometimes I get exciting error messages that do not pertain to me, other times I get directed to the Canadian version of popular websites and I get bonafide Canadian spam, still other times I lose all my data because of some power outage in the GTA. It’s a sort of tender endearment now.
To speak to your point on the US not being aware of the other countries in North America, I know more about Mexico because I’m originally from Texas…but H. Ross Perot and NAFTA sure as hell kept me apprised of our great friends to the North.
Now that I too am in the frozen tundra, I have a vast knowledge of Canada that I wouldn’t trade for all the world. Why? It provides great fodder for my blog. ;)
Hope you’re well, neighbour!