So, I know a lot of people are sort of wondering what happened to ikimashou and how I got it back and a bunch of other shit that is really none of their business.

Well, in keeping with the idea that there’s no cause for secrets in the world unless you’re doing something shifty, or if there’s some sort of contract involved that gives up rights to your juicy arse if you mention anything before a certain date. That’ll likely be the case for some future projects of mine, but that’s a different story. Right now, I’m going to explain what happened so as the slow kids can take it all in.

I could take the high road here and say it’s all my fault, and it partially is. When you register a domain, you have to keep watch on it. For busy people, among which I count myself, this isn’t so easy as you might think. Anyway, so I had ikimashou.net registered with a group called NameSecure. I try to keep an eye out for shady registrar activity, as it’s fairly common for people to get fucked these days.

One of these shady companies is called NetworkSolutions. They’re known for fucking people out of domains regularly through frontrunning (buying domains they know people are interested in through various WHOIS searches and so on) and generally skirting the mostly unenforceable rules set forth by ICANN. Let’s imagine ICANN as the guards at the beginning of Elfen Lied. Or the street cops in Sekirei. Or something like that. They’re useless.

So what happened with ikimashou? Well, basically, I received no e-mail notifications that domain was going to expire, or had expired. Then after the initial 30 days, it went offline. This was when I noticed. Haha. Fun for me. Still, knowing ICANN regulations like I do, I think “This is fine, I’ll just register it before the 30-day cooling off period runs out.” That is, a further 30 days in which the site is offline, but can still be renewed by the current owner. I went to the NameSecure site and there was no such option. I called to get it back, and was informed by a clearly unsympathetic chick that it was backordered (huh?) and already belonged to someone else.

Of course, I was pissed. But here’s a fun fact: Nothing you can do. So I mail the Chinese squatter who bought my shit. He wants $600 for the domain. So I figure, ah, fuck it. I’m fine without ikimashou. It’s certainly not worth paying $600 to someone I felt to be a theif. Not entirely accurate, but fucked if I cared.

So how did I get it back, then? Well, there were two options. Wait until December of 2009 and try to buy it back before some other squatter gets it, or give the squatter $1100, swallow that pride that tells you that you’ll never let the bad guy win, and just try to think of the good points. So, I clearly chose the latter.

That’s right, kids. I chose to spend $1100 to get back a domain name. Still, it felt like a part of me was missing ever since I lost it, so it’s a small price to pay. And it’s not like I’m some hobo that needs people to donate money to my slipshod garbage heap. So, it’s not a big deal. And now ikimashou is back and I feel good about it.

As for a quick timeline for the future, I am planning to use my holiday vacation to design ikimashou’s new look and get shit set and ready to pimp delicious Japanews straight into your juicy assholes. NO LUBE! That pretty much covers the immediate future.

If I forgot anything, whine about it in the comments.