History
Life’s Not Simple (LNS) began in the April 2003 as the result of a joke between Wall and myself, Ren. The site was an outlet for our combined humor and ranting—an electronic wood-chipper into which we poured massive amounts of random shit. LNS continued to amass traffic until December of that same year, when we abruptly were forced to shut down because we could not pay our server bills. Our monthly visits registered as a six-digit number, but Wall and I were too dumb to convert that into finances in any way because we refused to advertise on our site.
The site emerged again in April of 2006, and ran for a considerably longer period. The nature of the content remained the same, but Wall and I improved the quality of our delivery. However, by this time the Internet was filled with heavy contenders like MySpace, Facebook, and so on. Readers were harder to come by. Nonetheless, we pressed on, doing ‘our thing’, and kept up a solid run of content production up until the site shut-down in late 2007, primarily because Wall and I were both heavily occupied by our jobs.
And now here we are again, in our third incarnation. The heart of Life’s Not Simple remains the same: it is a creative outlet for whatever Wall and I wish to throw at it, in the hope that we can create an enjoyable website for people of similar minds. Having another three years away has again given us a new perspective on running a website—a new maturity, you could say. Being poor adults, we are no longer against advertising on LNS. But we want to be classy about it, stressing content first. None of that Google Ads shit. If we advertise something, it’s because we genuinely care about that product (or somebody wrote us a huge check, we are not above selling out.)
Who knows what the future will bring? In the past this project of ours has led to much laughter, helped us make great friends, heavily damaged existing friendships, almost led to physical violence on two occasions, helped me get a job, introduced us to fascinating media, and overall has been a fulfilling and challenging experience. There’s no reason for us to think similar ups and downs do not lie ahead.
Most importantly, we hope you stick along for the ride.
About Ren
My primary interests are technology and Japanese culture, two things which have dominated much of my life both personally and professionally. I think that will be obvious in my work here. While I enjoy speaking sarcastically about both topics, I welcome any genuine questions about either subject at Ren at lifesnotsimple dot com.
I listen to Japanese music almost exclusively, and you can find out what Japanese music I am listening to on my last.fm account.
About Wall
I enjoy video games and programming. Well, I tolerate programming so I can make video games. I also have an affinity for math and for pointing out problems, then pointing out solutions to problems, then feeling quite satisfied with myself. I don’t always enjoy philosophy, but I can never get it out of my mind. You can email me at Wall at lifesnotsimple dot com, and I just might read it.
About Skrath
I’m a cranky bastard who’s damn well going to let you know what I think. I’m not mean because it makes me feel better or because I think it’s making a difference, I just think the world needs a historical record of all the stupid crap that happens. Anyway, I’m pretty sure I have an email at Skrath at lifesnotsimple dot com. Honestly though, I’m not sure, I don’t read that shit.