Fear teh Wrath!

I had several ideas of what to talk about today, but I’ve not been in much of a mood to write this week, due to a series of mind-fuzzing headaches stress-inducing miscommunications, so instead of addressing any of those, I thought I’d just go ahead and post the following which has been sitting in my “drafts” folder since November: a mini-spotlight on my old roomie, Wrath teh Berzerkr. Of course, since Wrath is of the "would rather stick pencils in my eyeballs" school of thought when it comes to blogs, I could probably say anything at all about him and not have to worry about him knowing; I mean, it's not like the Best Man at Wrath's wedding who also has a penchant for performing Eeeeeeeeevil deeds is a regular blog monkey or anything . . . oh, wait . . .

Okay, so now on to the complete and totally 100% positive, no bad things here, nosireebob, mini-spotlight on Wrath teh Berzerkr.

While much has been made of G'ovich's propensity for randomness, Wrath also dealt in a sort of randomness uniquely his own. G'ovich's randomness would manifest itself in ways to amuse himself (such as "Hey, I've got an idea, for the rest of the day I'm going to try to sneak past anyone and everyone just for the heck of it" or "I know, I won't tell anyone that I got a new job just to see how long it takes for people to find out") or in suggesting oddball games and activities to others; Wrath's random ideas were often more in a "wouldn't it be cool/funny/weird if . . ." hypothetical vein; they were often grander in scale, but subsequently much less likely to be carried out. One of my favorites was his oft-stated desire during Freshman year to pop into classes at random, do his best Macho Man Randy Savage "snap into a Slim Jim!" impression, and then pop back out again.

One of those random idea that Wrath actually carried through took place our first semester, when we were both in the Honors Freshman English class; towards the end of the semester (it may even have been Dead Week) he had decided to shave off his goatee, but wanted to have a little messing-with-people's-minds fun first; so, he only shaved one side. He and I were almost always the first two people in class, so we just sat there waiting for people to come in; he sat in his chair propping his head up with his one hand so that only the shaved side was visible; he would then switch hands so that only the unshaved side was visible; this went on for quite a while (shaved, unshaved, shaved, unshaved) before one of the girls finally caught on.

One other Wrath story that always pops to mind is the Quiet Hours story. You see, during Dead and Finals week, there were strictly enforced Quiet Hours throughout the bulk of the day, with a whole hour of noisiness allowed in the evening to help residents vent. Well, during one of these Loud Hours Wrath had his stereo blasting pretty loud while a bunch of us congregated in the 3rd floor halls. For some reason we moved to a different floor, and forgot all about the blaring music, meaning that once the Quiet Hours started up again, Wrath was in violation. That could only mean one thing: The J-Board!

The J-Board (or Judicial Board) was sort of the disciplinary committee of the dorm; if you broke the rules, you went before them to plead your case, and they then handed out some sort of random punishment; for Wrath, it was to create a sign about Quiet Hours and display it on his dorm room door. Wrath, being Wrath, complied with the edict, but put his own spin on it: the sign read as follows: To Keep the Bliss, Mighty Bass You Must Miss.” Nice and rhymey, huh? Well, there was more to this sign than just the poetical nature, as certain letters were done in a different color and size, making them stand out slightly: "To Keep the Bliss, Mighty Bass You Must Miss.”

Scandalous, no?

Of course, the sign punishment was stupid, and pretty much all of the J-Board and R.A.s who saw the sign just laughed it off, with the exception of one, who just happened to be our R.A. I don’t know if he would have been quite as upset over Wrath’s little joke if it wasn’t for the fact that he hadn’t even caught it; he had seen the sign countless times on his rounds, but it wasn’t until one of the other R.A.s made a comment about it that our R.A. realized something wasn’t kosher. I think Wrath had to endure a lecture about respect and taking things seriously and the like, but that was about it.

I’m sure there are many other Wrath-centric factoids I could expound on here (such as his legendary thriftiness), but if I did that, then this wouldn’t be a mini-spotlight, now would it?