I don't actually look anything like this

As far as I know this blog’s never been a victim of a hacker before, and since it’s been a bit neglected in recent months I’ve done only the bare minimum in terms of upgrades, maintenance and general housekeeping. Since a lot of anime/J-culture bloggers I’m in contact with run on the wordpress platform, I might as well outline my experiences in case it happens to any of you as well.

The wordpress Pharma Hack doesn’t show itself on the blog itself, but its effects are obvious in the victim’s google rankings: post titles are replaced with spam ads and it can go unnoticed for some time…until the blogger either sees a drop in site traffic, visitors have trouble finding it through search engines or similar.

After the initial feelings of panic and “I…I…I’ve been violated…” I looked up the potential cause and what to do about it. I disabled all my plugins, backed up my database and WP directory (when was the last time I did THAT?), deleted all files and folders, re-installed a fresh copy of the WP software and restored the rest piece by piece. I re-uploaded images first, then plugins.

One useful tool in these situations is the Sucuri Sitecheck Scanner, which runs a diagnostic scan to show up what sort of nasties are lurking in your site. At the time of writing, this blog is clean but last weekend the scanner picked up a piece of Black Hat SEO malware that’s associated with unwanted/bogus ads. To pinpoint the problem I installed the WordPress Exploit Scanner, which runs a check through the WP install to highlight lines of code which may be troublesome and therefore require removal.

The Exploit Scanner picked out a couple of lines in my Feedburner plugin that are attributed to the WP Pharma Hack, so I deleted that offending plugin, ran the Sucuri scanner again and it gave me a clean bill of health. In a way I feel very fortunate in that the source of the problem was a mere plugin; I’ve read horror stories about blogs with infected databases which, with my limited knowledge of SQL, I’d be pretty at a loss in terms of how to deal with it.

In all honesty I don’t feel the need for the Feedburner plugin anyway – a lot of my site promotion comes from GRSI (now Google+) or Twitter; I don’t *think* removing Feedburner broke my RSS feed, but you might want to re-subscribe this blog in your feedreader, just in case. All this seems to have done in the long run is eat up a saturday while I was trying to familiarise myself with this little beastie of a hack and re-install my blog, but since I’ve used it as an excuse to start playing around with a new theme/layout it’s not all bad. I’ve also learned a few things:

1. Regularly back up your database, themes, uploads and anything else important that’s unique to your blog’s install (duh!) That includes the config.php and the .htaccess file.
2. Change your password periodically (duh!)
3. Install only as many plugins as you need. Newer versions of WordPress have more stuff already included but some things, like anti-spam plugins, as essential. Each plugin is a potential target for a hacker. Keep those updated too, in case the developers come up with patches for security issues.
4. Keep tabs on your google search results and site traffic. Sudden increases and decreases in hits are worth looking into, especially when you have a regular posting schedule (I don’t, but still…).

I now have the new (TwentyEleven) theme installed with some pretty-shiny new banner images, and a long to-do list for upcoming posts and tweaks to the layout. Last weekend actually reminded me about how fun maintaining (not just writing) a blog can be so I now have a few things lined up. The SF episodic story thing I was working on over on the main site will continue (when I’ve spring-cleaned and checked that WP installation too, natch) and at some point I’ll upload the rest of the photos from last September’s Japan trip onto Flickr. I want 2012 to be a productive year, whether the Mayans (or Roland Emmerich) were right about the imminent apocalypse or not.

Think of it then as my writing of stuff that wouldn’t otherwise get written at all. The name, by the way, is a pun on the title of a song by 65dos combined with a few more layers of double-meanings of the sort that I’m constantly amusing myself with. Self-indulgent but eh, isn’t that what blogging is all about?

What I’m constantly trying to break is the usual routine of writing a 1000+ blog post in a cycle of Draft Rewrite Hell spread across several evenings, going something like this:

1. come up with an interesting idea in the shower or during a boring spell at work
2. start a draft that reaches around 600 words
3. leave it for a day or two then do other things
4. add more paragraphs until a critical mass of around 1100 words is reached
5. cut out ‘unecessary’ and repetitive bits
6. rearrange a couple of paragraphs to improve the flow
7. agonise over suitable screencaps/illustrations
8. repeat steps 5-7 until I want to punch myself in the face
9. add screencaps, check for spelling mistakes, say “bollocks to it…” and hit Publish
10. grin with satisfaction when it appears on my feedreader
11. spot a dumb typo that survived x draft rewrites. Raeg.

Needless to say it’s liberating to either post one pic or churn out three or four paragraphs right off the bat and only checking for spelling mistakes than going through what’s become an unbreakable habit over the past four or so years. Writing is a compulsion for me so stopping entirely would be like losing a limb, but there’s no escaping the fact that I put myself through a lot of aggro and come out of it less than satisfied with the results.

There are things I’ve grown to love about the WordPress approach though: categories, tags, page layouts that are easy on the eyes and most importantly the commenting system. I’ve no idea of people’s opinions, if any, on my Tumblr posts…I could be speaking into an empty room for all I know. The WP comments thread is the easiest way of getting the two-way traffic of Web 2.0 and I’d hate to walk away from that entirely.

The career business is depressing as hell which saps more of my energy than I’d like but the music-related project is finally getting moving at last…I even have a couple of proper blog posts in the pipeline in the next week or two but in between the usual schedule, Tumblr or GRSI are where you’ll find me. Beats suffering full-blown Hiatus Disease, right?

Uh, this. As in, trying to sort out my ongoing soundcard issues by buying a twin-channel preamp mixer and new headphones. About time too I might add

Back o/t my opponent is Astrobunny…a blog with an Aria-themed header, guitar chords to anime songs and whose posts include such things as “Nowadays with so many people crossdressing, maybe parents should rethink their view on dressing their boys as girls as “just for fun”. It might have some interesting effects, such as on the fetishes they develop.” So yeah, I don’t really mind if I don’t win when I’m up against that. The dates seem to be US time rather than GMT, so there should still be time to go vote for whichever one of us you think is cooler.

It’s been an interesting year for a number of reasons, not least world events in terms of economies and finances which led to some sad incidents and a general feeling that the film and music industries are dying a slow and painful death. Granted, things have been rough but I don’t buy into the idea that there’s a Moe Cancer killing the anime industry and as for Japan as a whole…who knows what the political changes can do in the long term. In any case, here are my highlights of Interesting Japanese Things from the year.

Audition by Ryu Murakami is published in English

To my shame, the movie still sits on my to-watch shelf. The novel it’s based on hit UK bookshops this year, and it’s a really fun read. It saw me through a couple of exhausting night shifts too…

[original post]

Bakemonogatari airs

Hey kids, do you like Akiyuki Shinbo? Do you like Shinbo when he’s doing weird-ass Anno-esque imagery, razor-sharp dialogue and the best first date evar? Yep, Bakemonogatari was all of these things, and as such I loved it. Senjougahara Fascination begins here.

[original post]

Cutie Honey live action hits UK DVD

My inner Hideaki Anno fanboy talked me into buying this. It’s bad. Corny, overdone, breathtakingly silly…so bad in fact that it’s actually very, very good. I hope it’s the beginning of a trend into releasing more live-action J-cinema over here.

[original post]

Dir en Grey release Uroboros

The latest LP from the Angsty Men of Osaka is dark, challenging and really quite good. More varied and less abrasive than their previous one, it follows their progression towards the heavier end of the spectrum while drawing on their layered, more melodic roots.

[original post]

Eden of the East airs

The director of GitS:SAC, noitaminA, international terrorism and a few hundred unemployed naked blokes in shipping containers…who said anime was generic? I may have given it a bit of a lukewarm reception at points but Higashi no Eden was intelligent, refreshing and has tonnes of sequel potential. Just as well really since the two part feature film conclusion is on its way.

[original posts]

Kalafina release Seventh Heaven

The origins of this record can be found in Yuki Kajiura’s anime soundtrack work (see next item) but on its own that little girl group of hers made something really special. It turned out to be the soundtrack to my trip abroad and proved to be the best ¥3000 I ever spent.

[original post]

Kara no Kyoukai finishes its run of seven feature films

Strictly speaking it started in 2008 but with the final instalment just around the corner I can’t not mention it, purely on the grounds of it being the first screen adaptation of a Nasuverse piece that’s truly great. Not just the soundtrack: the visuals and most importantly the decision to be more faithful to the source material were all outstanding. Now go licence the English translation of the novels already.

[original posts]

Mono release Hymn to the Immortal Wind

After being so impressed with their Gone compilation (see my recent post) I was looking forward to their tenth anniversary recording. I’ve seen a few of you voice your respect for this band but quite frankly I don’t see why they can’t be even more successful internationally given the instrumental and emotionally intense nature of their music. Right from Ashes in the Snow (easy to learn, hard to master) I was captivated enough to call it my favourite new album of the year.

[original post]

Spice and Wolf season 2 airs

Remember how cute and heartwarming the first season was? Remember thinking “It’s good but I can see how it could be better”? I sure as hell did. Largely thanks to some sizzling character chemistry the second outing had all the charm of its predecessor but brought with it a certain je ne sais quoi that made a world of difference. It’s called character development, or something.

[original post]

Summer Wars is shown at the Leeds International Film Festival

I’m holding back on blogging about this properly since 1. the version available currently isn’t particularly good quality and 2. not many people have seen it yet so the post I currently have in draft format won’t mean one hell of a lot. It certainly wins the Anime Movie of the Year award for its warmth, vitality and visual excellence. Pure win all round, really.

[original post]

So yeah, it’s been one hell of a year. Perhaps the most important moment for me personally was the two weeks I spent in Tokyo – nothing satisfies the fascination for a country’s culture more than actually visiting the place for yourself. I’m planning to go back in approximately 18 months or so (and seeing some sights outside the city as well) but hopefully the double-whammy of jet-lag and culture shock from my first trip abroad won’t hit as bad next time. It was indeed epic so thanks to my fellow travellers who made it so special and also thanks again for reading. See you all in 2010!

I took a leaf out of Epic Win‘s book and moved the blogroll to its own separate page, to tidy up the sidebar if nothing else. I want to add subcategories to my links to make use of the extra space and organise them a bit better as well – it’s all in aid of looking classier and more readable (unless you read these posts solely on a feedreader, in which case my efforts will be lost on you). There are still the usual niggling details to iron out but as far as I can tell this theme looks the same in Firefox and IE, which is as much as I could hope for really. Not bad for something I threw together in the space of an evening.

To put it bluntly, CSS is a royal pain in the arse and no amount of Muse and Kalafina can sweeten the experience of misplaced semicolons and colours that refuse to behave themselves. The gravatars and comment quicktag boxes are next on my list so should make a glorious return as soon as I can sort them out; feel free to make suggestions and bug reports in the (currently incorrectly-sized) comments form as usual.

In other news, pretty much everything I’m currently watching is finishing so expect the last of Spice and Wolf (squeeeeee), Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 ( T_T ) and even thoughts on Canaan, assuming the last ep leaves enough of an impression for me to actually have an opinion on it. Darker than Black is finally being released on DVD over here now so I can rewatch that before 2009 is out too.

During my week offline I was reliant on reading good ol’ fashioned books to kill time so expect posts on the Crest of the Stars and Haruhi novels – they’re damn good reads but the differences between the originals and the TV adaptations are interesting in themselves. There isn’t much in the new season that’s caught my eye but the DtB second season and possibly the second helping of White Album will be worth looking into.

The rest of my energies at the moment involve the upcoming replacement of my trusty old laptop with a new desktop rig, which I’m planning on putting together and fitting with a Blu-ray drive in the next couple of months. There’s a Top Secret project involved in this too (hint in the pic above)…well, two people know about it so far but I’ll post details when the pieces are in place.

Finally, I’ve never mentioned the subjects of the current banner images either, so here they are:

• Ryougi Shiki (Kara no Kyoukai) deskop; unknown source
• Screenshot from Byousoku 5cm
• A view from Tokyo Tower at sunset that I snapped earlier this year.

Source: xkcd.xom, a site I love

It started with this unfortunate incident that’s an example of (on this blog at least) a mercifully rare side-effect of the user-comment feature: the Annoying Unconstructive Comment. The anime blogging community is a pretty closed one but every now and then, alongside the usual discussion with your blog’s regulars, you get a comment from a stranger who in all probability is ‘just passing through’. I try to reply to these but when it’s a one-line or incomprehensible comment I don’t normally bother – they’ll probably never read my reply anyway. This time I took the bait and was, well, a bit abrupt; in retrospect I was in the wrong but that’s beside the point. Nor am I taking back what I said. Here’s why.

It depends on your own writing style but I’m not one of those gifted few who can kick out a long, complex article in one sitting on a regular basis*: agonising over screencaps (now made slightly less tedious thanks to this plugin), turns of phrase and even punctuation frequently lead to a cycle of Post Draft Hell. It takes me a long time and a lot of effort to get one blog post online, which is why I don’t post with as much frequency and as a result every one is a big deal. If I waited until I was certain it was perfect in every aspect I’d never publish anything.

Blogging is fun but I still have a constant fear that I might make flawed arguments, unseen typos and other errors that go unnoticed until it’s too late. I go to a lot of trouble to weed these out but the thick skin that comes with writing publicly-viewable articles is something I’m still in the process of acquiring; there’s always that nagging feeling that after clicking the Publish button everything I say is going to be ripped to shreds or ignored entirely (or, worse, have the important points ignored while the trivial ones get all the attention). It appears some people actually enjoy nitpicking but after going to all the extra hassle to remove mistakes and give those people less cause for complaint it makes it all the more irritating when it happens anyway.

I’m, like, sooo tsundere for the Internet

We’re only human after all, so with the best will in the world (accompanied by Wikipedia and the MS Word spellchecker prior to C/Ping) there’s no cast-iron guarantee that what you write is 100% correct and meets the approval of everyone. Nobody likes being wrong; constructive criticism is good but there’s a difference between ‘constructive criticism’ and ‘splitting hairs’. Genuine trolls usually go by the username Anonymous so I’m giving this random passer-by the benefit of the doubt and assume it’s a misguided attempt at being helpful. So…

Writing intelligent blog posts is a time-consuming and labour-intensive process and inevitably, despite my best efforts, errors will occur. I have a contact form for private correspondance but a petty, single-line comment that ignores the main point to concentrate on trivialities will achieve nothing more than pissing me off.

This is why I won’t take back my annoyed reply; an explanation as to why I was annoyed in the first place is much more meaningful, right?

I don’t like to fall back on the excuse that this site is maintained in my own spare time and at my own expense in justifying this sort of thing; “this is my blog so I can say what I like,” is fair enough up to a point but it’s the start of a slippery slope. As much as posts that are inaccurate, offensive or just plain dumb can discredit me as an individual, there’s a limit to how much damage can be done. Multi-author blogs on the other hand are risky business because individual contributors’ writing, and quality thereof, reflects on the venture as a whole.

Which leads me onto the issues some of us are having with ANN’s current roster of reviewers. The article on Shigurui interested me in particular because it’s a title I know of by reputation but have yet to watch: I read ANN’s review with interest but was disappointed with the quality of writing, to put it mildly.

You know a reviewer has failed when the discussion that follows is more insightful and helpful than the article they’re discussing. As in, the commenters got a better gist of the subject matter than the reviewer did. In the case of bloggers who start being jaded and cynical towards the stuff they’re covering, it’s a sign of burn-out; Hiatus Disease follows and they take a much-needed break, end of story. In the case of a high-profile, multi-author venture such as ANN, the stakes are higher: the writers are presumably working to deadlines and have an incentive (financial or otherwise) to keep going. Remember Zac’s relief when he relinquished the reins of Hey, Answerman! to let a new writer step into his shoes? Zac’s a good writer I’m sure, but that was burn-out on an epic scale.

I think I know what to suggest to ANN, although implementing it is difficult, I’ll admit. The task of reviewing for their site, catering for casual visitors and dedicated fans alike, requires a clear, objective mindset. Getting the balance between giving fanboys/fangirls and haters certain titles to review is tricky when, say, moe shows aren’t popular amongst the current roster so the ‘right’ person for a given title may not be available. Apparently they have a shortage of good reviewers…but then, I saw some very articulate and entertaining writing in the comments forum thread that followed…

There’s also the problem of a Serious Misunderstanding again: a favourite site of mine once received a lot of flak for publishing a review on Grave of the Fireflies, for example. The admin decided to keep the review, which basically panned the movie, online; not because they agreed with the reviewer’s opinions but because the said opinions are representative of a portion of the potential audience, however minor that portion may be. I don’t agree with that review either, but I know the site well and don’t think any less of it for that; casual just-passing-through visitors on the other hand might not know this and as a result could make a Serious Misunderstanding…which may be the problem I recently experienced.

Perhaps ANN need to do a serious recruitment programme in order to top up their staff with some fresh, intelligent and articulate editorial talent to breathe life into a site that’s becoming increasingly distanced from the fanbase. They need to ask themselves a lot of questions: Are we honest and impartial? Are we in touch with the people we are writing for? Who are we writing for in the first place?

There’s a big jump between writing for your own satisfaction and getting some aggro from one or two visitors, and writing for a world-famous online site with the potential for getting A LOT of aggro from many visitors; but some rules still hold true in either case. Good writing still matters but honest mistakes still happen. Honest misunderstandings still happen too. What’s important is to do the best you can, which ought to mean an apology shouldn’t be necessary.

*This post was written with as much honesty, clarity and accuracy as I could scrape together, as always. It was also written in one sitting with no use of a spell-checker, so if that gives you cause for complaint it just proves my secondary point. It should also go without saying that I won’t change anything I’ve written, and won’t apologise for anything either.