It's been a few days since Apple finally committed to a firmish time frame for the launch of an iTunes Music Store for our buddies up there in Canada; suppose the wild celebratory revelry is winding down yet, or did the major cities hold off on throwing the actual parades until the weekend? At the time we were too overwhelmed by iPodular plot twists to give the subject of the iTMS Canada the attention it deserved, but Uncle Steve's announcement that Apple's finally going to launch it within the next four or five weeks is a major milestone for Canadian Apple fans, who, despite the typical restraints of normal time flow, have been waiting for iTMS access for approximately twelve years longer than the U.S. version has existed. (Neat trick.)

But all is not joy in Canuckville, because while a Canadian iTMS is imminent, Apple still hasn't committed to a Great White North expansion of that other great money-sucking convenience that U.S. Apple fans have enjoyed for the past few years: Apple retail stores. There have been whispers, of course-- some of the first concretish rumors of a planned Canadian retail invasion surfaced last February and named the Yorkdale Shopping Center and Toronto Eaton Centre as two of the first Canadian locations slated to play host to Apple's little slices of retail heaven. The question of when, however, has been as steeped in mystery as Apple's iTMS plans. More rumors alluded to internal Apple documents showing that Canada was supposed to have beaten both Japan and England to the retail scene, with the first two Canadian stores planned for openings before the end of 2003; instead it looks more than likely that Canada will continue to lack an Apple retail presence until 2005 at the earliest.

So why the delay? Well, we can't say for sure, but our best educated guess is that Steve went ballistic when he saw the third-season premiere of Degrassi: The Next Generation and immediately noticed that the actor playing Emma's brain-damaged biological father Shane McKay was clearly not Bill Parrott from the original Degrassi Junior High series. Whatever the reason, though, AppleInsider now reports that Apple is still planning to do the retail thing in Canada sometime in the "coming months." (Apparently Manny's bikini car wash scene in Season 4 made up for the ersatz Shane.) If you want to get a little more specific, Yorkdale reps narrow the range slightly to "mid-2005," though they claim that a finalized lease with Apple is still "pending," so anything could happen.

For those of you interested in the "where" as much as the "when," AppleInsider also notes a new mall alleged to be an Apple retail destination: Vaughan Mills, which claims that "nearly one quarter of Canada's population" is "within 97 km" of the mall-- a mere 60-mile radius. (We don't know much about Canadian population density, but somehow that seems overly optimistic. Sure, we know that vast swaths of Canada are emptier than Microsoft's Longhorn promises, but a quarter of the country's people all living within an hour's drive of the same mall? Spread out a little, guys-- you have the space.) If you're skeptical of the population claim, you may not put much stock into the mall's scheduling info, either; it claims to have a target opening date of this coming Thursday, and AI says that Apple will be "one of its first anchored tenants."

But hey, why not keep the rose-colored glasses spot-welded to our heads? Attention all Canadians: not only do you get the iTMS in less than a month, nearly a quarter of you will be less than an hour's drive away from an Apple retail store in just a few days! Enjoy the thought while it lasts-- and when it stops lasting, remember, "mid-2005" isn't exactly the end of the world, either. That comes in 2008 when we get invaded by the Giant Space Bees.

Speaking of countries waiting forever for iTunes Music Store access, how 'bout that there Ireland? It may not be the only European Union country without its own iTMS, but it is the only non-iTMSed one that actually uses the Euro for currency, and its omission from the list of supported countries makes the so-called "pan-EU" iTMS not just incomplete, but inconsistent as well. Oh, and not just a little ironic, what with Ireland's most famous rock band currently flogging iPods all over the telly, giving pro-iTMS pep talks to the press, and personally signing the backs of a zillion iPod U2 Special Editions. (What, you thought those signatures were machine-etched? Dream on. We hear Apple lost four employees while The Edge learned to work the laser.)

So why no Irish iTMS last Tuesday? Well, according to Macworld UK, apparently there was supposed to be, but the launch was "stymied at the last minute by a disagreement with the Irish Music Rights Organization." Phonographic Performance Ireland, which apparently represents the Irish recording industry, says that it was as surprised as anyone not to see the Irish iTMS launch on Tuesday alongside the nine other stores, but notes that the last-minute disagreement has since been hammered out.

Of course, if that were true, wouldn't the store be live by now? Because it isn't. And Apple refuses to comment on the situation, offering only its standard non-statement about how it's "committed to expanding the iTunes Music Store globally, and will announce new countries as and when they come on board." Meanwhile, the IMRO contradicts PPI be saying that "negotiations haven't concluded yet," but a "local label source" says that it believes "the issues have been resolved" and that the Irish iTMS should "open very quickly." Of course, then "local artist representatives" contradicted that source by insisting that "negotiations continue." It's like watching a freakin' tennis match or something.

Given the continued nonexistence of the store itself, we're going to have to assume that IMRO knows what it's talking about when it claims that negotiations are still underway; unfortunately, no one seems to be talking about just what the disagreement might be. Is it a tussle over the artists' cut of the take? The determination of which bands get promoted more heavily than others? The standard rider about picking all the brown ones out of the M&M bowl? What?

Well, AtAT sources have the answer: apparently all Irish artists want their own iPod Special Editions just like U2 got. Oooo, this could get messy. After all, there are only so many color combinations to go around, which means that if this demand is granted, somebody's going to wind up with his signature on the back of a puce-and-safety-orange iPod-- and that's not good for anybody. Stay tuned.

We admit it: we're getting increasingly nervous about the upcoming Billboard Digital Entertainment & Conference Awards next week. As you probably recall, Steve Jobs is up for the coveted (well, coveted by somebody, anyway; if nothing else, it'd probably fetch a few bucks on eBay) "Visionary of the Year" award, and while-- objectively speaking-- the competition's pretty thin, some pretty unlikely things have been happening lately. The very fact that a clueless poacher like RealNetworks's Rob Glaser is also up for the award seems wildly improbable, but it happened. And if the world spins off its axis for just a fraction of a second next Friday and Glaser is declared to be the bigger visionary, we fear that Steve's wrath will be terrible. We're talking chunks missing from the planet, piles of bodies sixty feet high, all the tags ripped off the mattresses in every furniture store, etc.

We know, we know-- how could anybody choose Rob "Champion of the People" Glaser as a bigger visionary? But ask yourselves this: how could anyone have even nominated him? We tell you, weirdness is afoot in the universe these days. Seriously, a Red Sox championship? We're thrilled for them and all, but it's like the laws of thermodynamics have been repealed or something. And if the unthinkable happens next Friday with Rob and Steve, the consequences could be dire.

Look, here's still more reason to worry: we were looking out our Boston-area windows last night and just happened to glance over at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in New York just as the judging panel of the CNBC/Wall Street Journal Executive Leadership Awards was in the process of declaring Microsoft CEO Steve "Give Me BAND-AIDs For My Knuckles" Ballmer to be the "Leader in Innovation." So clearly it's possible for thoroughly undeserving people (actually, we're not sure that Ballmer's technically a "person"-- is there an anthropologist in the house?) to win awards, and if Ballmer can be "Leader in Innovation," surely Glaser can steal "Visionary of the Year" just like he tried to steal iTunes customers by reverse-engineering iPod compatibility without a license. The end is nigh!

Oh, wait-- never mind. According to MacMinute, it was actually Steve Jobs who won the "Leader in Innovation" award, as it should have been, and not Steve Ballmer. Our mistake-- to the unaided eye from 200 miles away with no sleep and without the ability to compare odors, those two could be twins. So, Jobs did win something he deserved-- good! Maybe the universe is starting to come back to its senses and the odds of a Glaser-over-Steve upset will return to their normal immeasurably teensy values. And even if Glaser somehow beats him, perhaps this "Leader in Innovation" award will be enough of a preemptive balm for Steve's ego that he'll only eviscerate half the human race. Sweet.

(By the way, the Ballmer digs were our obligatory contribution to Wildly Off-Topic Microsoft-Bashing Day. So no whining to the FCC about how we're not fulfilling our requirements, buddy.)