ThinkSoJoE's Thoughts

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!

My buddy Scott from allwnyradio.com recommended me to the social music site last.fm the other day, and I've been kicking back and listening to music ever since.  I've decided that I've got to put up a feed on this site to the songs that I "love."  So that pretty much means I have to figure out how I did the digg sidebar and create a last.fm sidebar in a similar fashion.  Hooray!

Meanwhile, I've recenly purchased a new acoustic guitar and I'm considering doing an acoustic set somewhere sometime.  It wouldn't (and shouldn't) consist of many thinksobrain songs.  In fact, there wouldn't be much original material in the set, probably a bunch of covers and a couple of ThinkSoJoE originals.  If and when I decide to do this, I'll let you guys know.

Speaking of ThinkSoJoE original songs, next Sunday marks three years to the day that my good friend Eddy passed away.  I'll probably create a new performance video for the tribute song I wrote in his memory and post it here then.