Twister!

I want you to picture the Olympics, any event. After a great and courageous struggle, there is a victor. After that, there is a second- and third-place winner as well of course. And so on. Technically everybody is ranked. But there are only three that get to take the stand and have their flags displayed. Can you name the 8th-place winner of any event, ever in the Olympics?

Yet according to Wikipedia, on this day in 1899, the 8th-deadliest tornado in U.S. history struck in New Richmond.

Ok, so I don't have the faintest clue where New Richmond is and therefore this tornado means very little to me. But beyond that, why is this even mentioned? This tornado's flag wouldn't even be displayed if "Tornado Kills" were an Olympic event. 8th-deadliest? Sure, there are technical ranks beyond 1-3, but who really cares about them? I tried to find a good tornado picture to go with this, but they all looked far scarier than the 8th-deadliest. They looked like contenders for first or second place.

Also on this day in 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that all state laws which prohibit interracial marriage are unconstitutional. The case? Loving vs. Virginia. I guess Virginia really IS for lovers.

Now on to today's sad news. I just checked my birthday on Wikipedia. Guess what? My name has been removed from the list of people born on June 10. And the annals of Wikipedia shall never be the same again. So much for Ambassador of Awesome. I almost want to play a game with Wikipedia now, except I probably won't because it would be a serious waste of time. The game would be that I would go around to various articles at random and insert a sentence that talks about Waldo. I could find a way to work it in.

So then the challenge would be to find Waldo! It could even be somewhat discreet because I could link to the Wikipedia page on Waldo. See, I'm convinced that's what gave me away on the June 10 page. My name stood out in red because I didn't have my own Wikipedia page. Then again...what does it take to create your own Wikipedia page...?

Ok, so I looked into this Waldo thing a little more. Did you know that there was an animated television series of Waldo? Apparently they even had "Waldo's minutes" during the show, in which the screen froze for a full minute to give the viewer a chance to find Waldo, just like in the books. And you know what? It was nominated for the 1992 "Annual Young Artist Award" in the category of "Outstanding New Animation Series", but it lost to the Back to the Future animated television series. Another thing I didn't know existed but now have a serious hankering to watch.

Ok, the craziest part of all this? I know the guy whose dad did the Narrator's voice for the Waldo television show. That blows my mind.

So here is the intro for the Where's Waldo tv series. Surprisingly, it only ran one season. Actually, after listening to the theme song, it's not that surprising:

Where's Waldo TV Show Intro

And here is the intro for the Back to the Future tv series.

Back to the Future TV Show Intro

I must admit, the theme song is a LOT catchier. The show clearly deserved to beat out Waldo for that award. But I'm still very curious as to which show ended up in 8th place...

Pictures:
Olympic Symbol
Waldo