ThinkSoJoE's Thoughts

Well, normally that title line follows the line "Suffer from the world's destruction," but I suppose it applies here.  The question I'd asked a couple of entries prior was certainly given a few answers, and I picked the latest one, which suggested I contact the person in question to see how they'd feel about me attending their graduation instead of just showing up.  Well, the graduation was this past Wednesday night.  Finally, for the first time in over two years, ThinkSoJoE and former thinksobrain bass player Dan were voluntarily in the same place at the same time.

Sure, we'd run into each other over those two years, but pretty much ignored one another.  That first phone conversation after the initial MySpace messages felt like two years of weight off of my shouders.  We both finally were able to give each other our own sides to the story.  I went to the graduation and hung out with him for a few hours afterward.  Maybe it's time to re-add his pictures to the "Former Members" album on thinksobrain's MySpace page.

Dan graduating has made me sit back and think about it though - I'm 27 years old with no direction in mind for my life.  I'm all over the place with what I want to do.  I've thought about accounting, going to a recording school, and now I'm leaning towards Information Technology.  IT jobs pay big money, and quite frankly, I'm tired of barely scraping by going paycheck-to-paycheck.  While my ultimate goal is to play my music for a living, that's unfortunately on hold for the moment.  Mostly because I don't have the money to invest in anything I need to make it happen.  i was trying to do web design, but it's hard to establish yourself and find clients.  I'm thinking of doing some acoustic stuff, but that's probably not going to net me much money - although that decision was influenced by the fact that it's what Aaron Lewis did for money before breaking out with Staind.  I don't know, maybe I should go for the IT thing.  I'm into computers, networking, and all kinds of stuff like that, so why not?

Actually, I requested some more information on ITT Tech, I'm thinking maybe it's a good idea.  Dan graduated with honors - and this is a guy who didn't make it past 10th grade.  Problem with that, of course, is that I don't have a car and Getzville is pretty far away on the bus.  Then again, I'm a guy who sent away for more information on a recording school in Los Angeles when I live in Western New York.

I don't know, I suppose I'll figure shit out and post here when I do.  That's what I've been doing here lately anyway, isn't it?  Ranting about whatever's on my mind and then figuring it out.  I guess that's the whole point of a blog anyway, right?

The other night I came on here and posed a question, wondering what other people would do if they were faced with a situation where they could potentially surprise an old friend that they had a falling out with.  You'll recall that I had a situation like that arise, as I found out that somebody I hadn't spoken to in two years was graduating from college this coming Wednesday night.  A couple of early comments leaned towards just going to the graduation and extending a handshake and a congratulations.  I actually thought it was a pretty decent idea at first, but the more I thought of it, the more I thought that if he was still harboring anger towards me, it could potentially ruin his night for him.  A commenter later in the day expressed the same sentiment, and suggested that I let the person know I was thinking of showing up.

After a lot of soul searching and a lot of thought, I ultimately decided that I should test the waters first.  I left a comment on the person's MySpace blog about his impending graduation (since MySpace lets you comment on the blogs of people not on your friends list).  I told him that I'd initially thought to just show up, but that I didn't want to ruin the night for him.  I told him that I just wanted to offer my congratulations and that I'm proud of him for graduating.

Earlier tonight when I checked my MySpace, I had a new message.  It was from my old friend, with the subject line "Long Time."  In it, he told me how he felt when everything happened, and that he recently decided that no matter what has happened in the past, he wanted to start with a clean slate with everybody.  He also told me that he came to this realization the day after he finally saw a movie I'd recommended to him thousands of times before.  I guess it's not just being a member of Fight Club that makes you think of things differently.

I replied to his message with one of my own.  I reiterated that I'm considering going to his graduation and expressed interest in hanging out sometime soon.

So, in taking the advice of the person who suggested testing the waters first, I think I've made the right decision.

I've always been a big enough man to apologize when I feel I've wronged somebody.  A few years ago I had a falling out with a friend I'd known since I was just a child.  It wasn't necessarily the issue we were arguing over that caused the falling out, more the way that things were handled.  It was indeed I who initiated the situation, though I tried to handle it differently.  For a few days after the incident, I felt terrible about the way things happened - I knew they should have gone differently.  So the next time I saw my now former friend, I walked up to him and I apologized.  I told him that I felt terrible for the way things went down and I wished they'd gone differently.  He, justifiably, brushed off my apology, telling me, "it still happened."  He was right.  The damage had been done.

In the time since that unpleasant incident, he's forgiven other mutual friends for far worse things than what I'd done - at least, far worse things in my perception of them, though he's made no attempt to reconcile with me.  Mutual friends have expressed interest in attempting to help us patch things up, but perhaps things are too far gone.

Recent events have led to me looking my former friend up on MySpace, where I learned that he will be graduating from college this Wednesday.  He's invited anybody to his graduation, provided they contact him and let them know.  I'm considering asking one of our mutual friends if they are planning to go, and if so, if I might be able to tag along.  I figure, even if he's still holding a grudge against me, I'm proud of my childhood friend for doing something I never did, and I can at least offer him my congratulations.  Whether he accepts it or not, that's another story.

So tell me, what would you do in my situation - would you try to go to the graduation, or keep being a stubborn bastard with the "I apologized to him, he can come to me" attitude I've held for years?

First of all, FUCK Terrell Owens, and FUCK the Buffalo Bills.  I hate stupid fucks like Terrell Owens who don't give a fuck about team loyalty.  T.O. was playing for the Niners, then refused to play the next season unless he was traded.  He got his wish and was traded to the Baltimore Ravens, whom he subsequently refused to play for.  The little crybaby bitch finally got his way and wound up in Philadelpiha.  I mean no offense to the Eagles fans that I know, but nothing made me happier than seeing the Eagles finally make the Super Bowl after failing in the NFC Championship for four straight years, just to choke and see Owens prove to be the worthless player he is.  Now he's on my hometown Bills, who I haven't given a crap about in a decade and a half - when I was twelve.  Guess who could care less but will hear more about it than 95% of NFL fans?  Yeah.  Fuck Owens and the Bills.

The second item here is that Rush Limbaugh needs to change his fucking name.  I don't care about this fuck, but he's all over the digg.com front page, and I take a second look every time thinking that they're talking about the band Rush.  If anything, submitters to digg need to use the traditional means of using the last name (or surname, if you speak proper English) in the article titles.  If I saw something along the lines of "Limbaugh is at it again," I'd know to ignore it and move on - but when I see "Rush is at it again," I stop for a second to read the summary because I think Geddy Lee is up to something.  Fuck Rush Limbaugh.

Thanks for listening!

I've been meaning to add support for social bookmarking to this project for a while.  thinksobrain.com has it, and has had it for a while - the difference, of course, is that since thinksobrain.com was done in Wordpress, all I really had to do was install a social bookmarking plugin to get that one to work.  Since I did this one from scratch, it's going to take a bit of good old fashioned elbow grease - but since I've been bored out of my mind at work and looking for a project (other than trying to figure out what to do about my somedumbidea.com project), this will give me something to do.

In thinksobrain news, I should have a car soon, which means that I'll be looking for a new practice space for the band.  Once those two things are out of the way, it'll be time to start the search for a new guitarist.  Hopefully we'll be back out performing sooner rather than later.

UPDATE:  I've finished my little Social Bookmarking project.  It's heavily inspired by the MacOS Dock.  Hope you guys like it!