So *that's* what it's like!

Having been a goddamn filthy American my entire life, not only have I taken for granted the fact that most of the rest of the world kindly accommodates my neanderlithic mono-language existence by populating the internet with mostly english content, but I've also taken for granted the fact that I take it for granted.

This point was driven home to me this evening as I hit up the 1503 A.D. forums, hoping for a little help on how to constrain the cursor to the game on my dual-monitor setup. Unfortunately, all I found were inscrutable associations of characters like the following:

"Kann selbst gespeicherte Spiele nicht laden!"

It was the '!' at the end that drew my attention to that little nugget. I know what '!' means. That 6 word sentence was emphatic, baby! And for all I know it was related explicitly to the tiny piece of technical jiggery I was seeking. Instead, there I was, staring stupidly at pages upon pages of the bounty of well-intentioned non-Americans helping each other play and enjoy a quirky colonial era economic sim, all of whom presumably better dressed than me and possessing a far superior appreciation of techno music.

I felt so... brutish.

Then, since I was online anyway, I jumped over to cnn to see if we'd bombed anybody today.