Kitschy Wisconsin

Wisconsin is famous for the Wisconsin Dells, known around the country for its water amusement parks. Growing up in a rural east coast town, I remember one of my fourth grade buddies took a cross-country road trip with his family and came back boasting of his experience at the water park capital of the world in Wisconsin.

The particularity of the water park motif is odd. Shouldn't there be a Six Flags in the Dells, for completeness? Is the tourism market so hydro-elastic that water parks will be sustainable but, if you take out the water and put in a rollercoaster, everything changes?

I preface today's "news" with these remarks so y'all don't think we're crazy. Great Wolf sets Guinness water-slide record. The record is the "longest distance sliding in multiple venues."

It may be blasphemous to write underneath cows surrounded by Wisconsin sports icons, but this has to be among the lamest "world records" ever. I just set the world record for being most astonished that a previous world record was in fact a world record. And I did this from the safety and comfort of my desk: No "multiple venues" or "distance sliding" necessary.

I think the "multiple venues" thing is truly my breaking point. Getting a whole bunch of people together at one time to set world records is not novel. Getting a whole bunch of people separate is not that cool.