I'd love to be able to customize my avatar; am I missing a way to do that? I don't want the forum to link to Facebook accounts or anything of that nature like other sites do, but I think that it can add something to the forum when you can get to 'know' other users.

I believe what you are referring to is Reverse Image search. I agree, it would be awesome to see a similar feature!

USA here (East coast---currently)
I'm loving this thread; it's intriguing to hear what people's perceptions of their countries are (not to mention observe the spread of users).
"Japan---blue skies and earthquakes"
"Portugal---economic crisis" etc etc.

How did you all stumble onto this site?