Creole Ned is the online persona I created in 1997 to play games on what was then called the Internet Gaming Zone (now MSN Games). A friend and I had whiled away many an hour playing games like Duke Nukem 3D and Age of Empires over modem (how quaint!) but yearned for more. The IGZ required you to create a name that would be used in the various game rooms. My friend chose Sexy Nancy because he thought it would be fun to role-play a hot chick who was into gaming. I chose Creole Ned for reasons unclear to me to this day. I wanted some kind of adjective-noun combo to go along with Sexy Nancy and after not much thought “Creole Ned” just popped into my head. I like creole cooking, but not so much that I’d name myself after it. Except I did online.
As for my friend, it turned out that Microsoft did not like people describing themselves as sexy and so his alter-ego became Sweet Nancy, which, if anything, was more disturbing.
I have stuck faithfully to the name Creole Ned over the years as my connection graduated from a phone line to cable, DSL and now fancy pants fibre. Probably the most notable online use of the name was for the games Tribes and Tribes 2. For a few years I was also one of the volunteer forum moderators for Vivendi’s official Tribes forums and used the same name there, so someone somewhere probably associates it with being banned.
Who is behind Creole Ned?
I am! I’m Stan James and was named after my dad’s father and was born in Duncan, British Columbia. My time on this planet has been split chiefly between the town I was born in and Vancouver, which I moved to in 1986. I’ve also lived for a time in Nanaimo and Victoria. I should probably point out that I’ve not spent time off the planet, just to stave off conspiracy theories.
I currently live with my partner in New Westminster. There are a lot of hills here. And trains. I write, doodle and program games (somewhat ineptly on the latter, but I’m learning). I spent a few years working retail, which I would never do again, and even more years in tech support, which I would double-never do again. I work independently now and make a great boss for myself.
Why should you care what I have to say?
That’s a good question. Really, you shouldn’t. This site exists as a vehicle through which I can entertain myself. If others are entertained or occasionally gain some small insight, that’s a nice bonus. But I won’t pretend I’m terribly fascinating. I just like to write and hey, here I am. On this blog, you’ll find a few recurrent themes or topics:
- Running. I track every run in loving detail. If you run, you might find this interesting. But probably not.
- Photography. I started taking a lot more photos in 2018, then got a mirrorless camera with telephoto lens in 2021, so I post occasional galleries of birds and other random subjects. More recently, a few people I know online got into taking photos of fire hydrants, so that’s a thing now.
- Writing. You’ll find numerous prompts here, both ones I’ve created and ones I’ve written stories from, along with other various thoughts and things on writing fiction.
- Doodles. I started drawing again a few years ago, so you can find assorted sketches, some Inktober entries and other miscellaneous illustrations. Most of these are done on an iPad Pro with Apple Pencil® and Procreate software.
Social media: I’ve given up on most of it, but still have a semi-active account on Mastodon.
About the site
The site currently uses the following:
Blog software: WordPress
Theme: GeneratePress
Fonts: Ever-changing
I may be contacted via ned@creolened.com
