Test variables of current post against ones from other posts

I have a div box in my sidebar that links to a random post and also pulls a picture from that same post. However, sometimes that link is the same as the post you are currently on. I want to avoid that.

I started off with this code:

<?php
    	$my_posts = get_posts('category=3&numberposts=1&orderby=rand');
	foreach($my_posts as $post) :
		setup_postdata($post);
?>
<img src="/images/<?php the_title(); ?>.jpg" title="Rate Me" height=100 width=100 border=0 alt="">
<br>
<a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></li>
<?php endforeach; ?>

Then when I started tweaking the code:

<?php
    	$my_posts = get_posts('category=3&numberposts=1&orderby=rand');
	$thisone = the_title();
	echo $thisone;

	foreach($my_posts as $post) :
		setup_postdata($post);
		$thatone = the_title();

		echo $thatone;
		echo $thisone;
?>
<img src="/images/<?php the_title(); ?>.jpg" title="Rate Me" height=100 width=100 border=0 alt="">
<br>
<a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></li>
<?php endforeach; ?>

The variable $thisone returns the title of the current post’s title. And it does successfully. The variable $thatone returns the random link’s title successfully. But the second time I echo “$thisone” it does not show up.

Why this is important is because I want to test $thisone vs $thatone to make sure they are not equal. How can I do this?

Your help is appreciated.