Scott Says

I was aroused from my studies yesterday by an e-mail from YouTube, informing me that someone posted a comment on my Ketchup Bottle trick video (available here). The comment, from user Acrobat2002, is (and I quote): “ahhaha cool”.

While on the page I saw that it has been viewed, as of then, over 200 times - by far my most viewed video. YouTube keeps track of which web sites refer people to which videos, and the site that sent more people to my video than any other is http://forum.mvd.pl/viewtopic.php?t=538. Go ahead, click the link. I think you’ll be as surprised as I was when you see what it is.

Here’s something interesting about me you might not have known: I am not fluent in Polish. I’m sure I’d recognize about half a dozen words from “Borat,” but other than that, it might as well be Martian. So these Polish people - amateur magicians, I would guess - love the ketchup trick and feel it worthy of a full message board conversation. I’m not saying I’m totally shocked by this - after all, I certainly do deserve the respect and attention of an adoring and devoted fanbase - but it is a little weird. Plus I’m dying to know what they’re saying about me.

I surfed to poltran.com in an attempt to translate, but the resulting English approximation was garbled as hell. Step two was registering on the forum, which was a grotesque misadventure all its own. I clicked the “Rejestracja” link and was brought to a page not unlike American forum signups. The first part was easy enough: U_ytkownik was username, Adres email was e-mail address, Has_o would have been tough except beneath it was Potwierdz Has_o and when I typed the letters, they showed up as dots on the screen. Password and retype password. The only other required field was “Etap.” Crud. “Etap,” according to the page, required “Zastan�w si_, kt�ry z podanych zwrot�w najlepiej oddaje Tw�j obecny poziom i okre_l sw�j stopie_ zaanga_owania jako iluzjonisty.” Helpful. My choices were Brak, Widz, Zainteresowany, Poczatkujacy - uh, help? - Hobbysta, Potprofesjonalista, Profesjonalista, or Gwiazda swiatowego formatu. Okay, I think they want to know if I’m a hobbyist, semi-professional, or professional magician. But what if one of the other choices is more appropriate? What if the Polish word for “law student who does magic shows as a weekend job” is “Brak”? Next step: Click one of the two buttons, either “Wyslij” or “Wyczysc” (punctuation omitted). Hmmm… Wyczysc? Nope, that just cleared all the fields. I re-enter my information, click Wyslij, and bam - I’m registered for a Polish-language magic enthusiast message board. Just exactly what I expected to be doing the day before my 4-hour Civ Pro final.

I try to post a reply on the thread with my YouTube video to ask if anybody speaks English and, if so, to please translate for me. But even this is complicated: After finally finding the “reply” button, I make my post, which is added to the bottom of: Some other thread. For some reason I am not allowed to reply to the thread about me. As of yet, the forum-master has been of limited help; the e-mail automatically sent to me upon registration, translated by poltran.com, reads as follows: “On greet not forget Mundus Vult Decipi has? But at registration served. It (them) ? You will forget li, mo? Will receive it esz? New, kt? Ce ex- ? Is necessary it dzie aktywowa? To identical spos? Ex- as this account. Dzi? Hammer we too rejestracj?” As there is no Poltrantran.com, which perhaps would be able to translate this translation into English, I am stuck wondering what it (them) eat? Also, I should have no problem forgetting li, mo, as I have no idea what that ever meant in the first place.

If anybody can shed some light on this, I would be most appreciative. It’s such a wonderful bit of irony that my first non-related fanbase can’t even tell me how great I am. And now, back to m
y regularly scheduled cramming.