Thoughtnami at 20.

 Today, June 28, 2024, is the 20th anniversary of the launch of this blog, Thoughtnami.

Yes, the very first post I made here published on June 28, 2004. It's been a long, long, long time since I've done a true introduction to this place. And it has been a long, long time since I had anything to say around here at Thoughtnami. So, forgive me if it gets a little ramblely. 

In 2004, I created this Blogger account and launched Thoughtnami. Granted, at the time I launched it, I already had a webpage, and a pretty popular one at that. The X Bridge was a fairly popular webpage dedicated to the far-more popular action cartoon block Toonami, which aired on Cartoon Network at the time, and action-animation as a whole. I was also hosted by Toon Zone, one of the best sources for animation news online.

Funny situation though. I had been writing several articles criticizing Cartoon Network and its parent company Time Warner over various business decisions. I was brutal, but I felt guilty about writing them. As much as my family at Toon Zone appreciated and valued my opinions and articles, I didn’t want them to get caught in the crossfire of Cartoon Network and Time Warner or any other company associated with animation that I talked critically about. I didn’t want them to get in trouble over anything I said on an outlet they hosted, so I went over here and said those things without that smoke.  Even though I posted a disclaimer that what I said on The X Bridge did not reflect the opinions of Toon Zone, that wasn’t enough. 

Thoughtnami exists because I didn’t want my friends to get hurt or punished for anything I said.

And for about four and a half years, I balanced my time at TXB and Thoughtnami, and it stayed that way until the summer of 2008. The summer of 2008 was rough. I lost a computer and relied on a much-older machine that ground when I ran it. Plus, I was dealing with two things at once. My uncle (that is, my mom and aunt’s only brother) passed away suddenly that June, and my grandfather, who I had been the sole caregiver of, was slipping away before my eyes. My computer wasn’t working when Toonami ended that year, but I squeezed out a quick update on my main site and went back to life on the other side of the screen. Nothing online mattered. I just went on to take care of my grandfather until he passed that November. 

By 2009, I got back online full-time with a new computer, but it wasn’t the same. I think my heart wasn’t in it anymore.  I was even more angry about the world and needed to move on. Thoughtnami wasn’t where I wanted to be, and I moved away from Blogger at the end of the year and moved to Tumblr, which I worked on for a couple of years. Without Toonami, some folks told me that The X Bridge wasn’t necessary. Even though I did more experimental things over the years, but nobody wanted that. Even when Toonami came back in 2012, the online world moved on, and I felt so many others had Toonami locked down and was more organized than I ever was. Besides, my mom became more convalescent, and I had to be a caregiver to her as well. 

So, slowly and reluctantly, I walked away from The X Bridge. I walked away from Thoughtnami. And I walked away from Toon Zone.

Not because of anything anyone said or did. I just doubted myself and felt that nobody really needed me around, and that self-hate took over. I found someone who inspired me for a while. She was the love of my life, and I wanted to do all for her. And she loved the hell out of me. And I gave her that love back tenfold. I found myself on Twitter and kind of did what I used to do on The X Bridge and Thoughtnami, albeit on a much, much, MUCH smaller scale, but seemingly a wider audience. And just when I think I found my groove on Twitter, life decided to kick me in the teeth again. I lost another computer, had to struggle with a used computer, lost THAT one, worked with another used one, lost part of my sight in one eye, and dealt with a busted water heater that destroyed much of my clothing (and I lost a few books and documents that were irreplaceable). 

But none of that compared with losing the woman I loved for over a decade in 2022. 

She passed away quietly and suddenly. That was the darkest period in my whole life. I was lost. I felt like there was nothing left for me here. Everything I worked for, the life I wanted to build with this woman, the family we should have had, all gone. I felt that life itself wasn’t worth it, but I just cried.

And cried.

And cried until I ran out of tears.   

Then, I laid down a lot. I didn’t want to go out. I was probably just waiting to die or at least escape the real world for a few hours. I was not in a good place. Life was not for me in that corrupt, diseased world. For months, so much bad stuff was happening, I thought I was cursed. But a few days after my laptop stopped working for a while in October 2022, I felt like I needed to snap out of this and find myself again.

I became creative. I started writing and drawing again on paper and creating things again. I needed to stop being angry with myself and others and get more focused. When the computer resumed working out of the blue, I started posting more again, first at Post, then briefly on Tumblr, and then on Bluesky, where I do most of my posting nowadays outside of Twitter, which is still the social media outlet of choice. 

It was at Twitter when I really got creative with The WB100 Project, a year-long celebration of Warner Bros’ 100th anniversary I worked on from April 2023 to April 2024.  I did banners for Cartoon Network, Warner Bros Animation, Warner Bros Classic Animation, and Warner Bros Television. I even did a few holiday banners. I even did a few creative concepts for Cartoon Network and MeTV as well as celebrated MGM's 100th anniversary in 2024. I found my creative voice again, and I needed to do more. Especially when the news of MeTV TOONS came out, I wanted to write about how I felt, but I was limited by the outlets I could do that. 

I still can’t connect to the server that hosts The X Bridge (still trying to figure that out). 

Tumblr is complicit. Substack is corrupt. Mammoth is weird.  Bluesky is limited. Twitter is even more limited and full of a lot of unfriendly voices. And Toon Zone isn't even the same, becoming more of a vineyard. 

Then I remembered I had a Blogger account. I’m still surprised that Blogger is still around in 2024. 

So, I came back here and wrote a few posts about MeTV TOONS. I apparently had a lot to say. Shame I can't get the channel locally (at the time that I wrote this). I do hope future me who is reading this is enjoying it today.

I realize I have a still have a lot to say. I’m not beholden to any set schedule anymore. I’m not as young as I used to be. I’m not worried about being monetized or demonetized, though if you want to send me a PayPal tip or an Amazon wishlist item if you dig what I write around here, I’ll be appreciative.

I still need a proper computer setup because it feels like I have buzzard's luck with them.  

I think I’ll stick around these parts and see if it sticks this time. I’ll create articles every now and then, if people dig it. Or not. Regardless, I’ll create them. 

And keep creating.