Welcome to the FAQ about Nils – launched sometime in the late 90s, in hiatus for very long, revived in the first days of 2006, and to be extended anytime soon.
These are actual questions I got tired of answering at some point or another….
Are you Swedish? Danish? Norwegian?
Sorry, no. My great-…-great-grandfather (on my father’s side of the family) got stuck on the German side of the border after the Prussian-Danish war of 1864. That’s where our name comes from. Ever since then, my branch of the [Jeppe family](http://www.jeppe.de) was doomed to a life in this country. Other branches were smart enough to high-tail out of here, but mine wasn’t.
Are you American?
No, some non-native speakers of English say my accent is more American than British, but no native speaker would ever think that. I do have a thick German accent.
Where are you from?
Hamburg, Germany. Now living in Munich, Germany.
Nils Jeppe? Aren’t you that rich Yacht owner?
I wish.
**Do you drink?**
Nope.
Do you smoke?
Nope.
Do you smoke the other kind of stuff?
Nope.
Are you that guy who is married to Susanne?
What? – No, and stop asking. I have received various inquiries about this, and I have no idea how people get the idea. Either one of my twins from alternate universes popped over to this Earth for a vacation, or the people asking are pranksters.
Why is your homepage in English?
Because I know a whole bunch of people who speak English but no German. Sorry if this inconveniences you.
Whatever happened to your Gutenberg mirror?
Oh, you must have been around quite a while. I ran a Gutenberg mirror for several years, and it was quite popular. I had to close it down when I moved my server to a metered contract on a 10 Mbit line. Fortunately, there are now many other mirrors in Germany, so I don’t really think that the shutdown of my mirror is a problem.
Hey Nils, my name is Nils! Do you know where our name comes from?
Yes, Nils is a swedish short form of Nikolaus. The Danish version would be “Niels”. Nils is actually a pretty common name in Germany (and Scandinavia, obviously), but it is very rare in the USA.
Nikolaus was a christian saint, Bishop of Myra in the 4th century. The name means ‘lord over the people’ from the old greek nike = victory and laos = the people.
Why are you always so pessimistic?
Short answer: I am not. Trust me.
Long answer: I prefer to calculate risks and to assume the worst case. That way, I know that things will – usually – go better than I expect. I find this method much more rewarding than constant disappointment.
Do you need those stay-hard pills?
Nope. And stop sending me those advertisements.
I don’t like the questions in this FAQ!
That’s not a question, how am I supposed to answer that?
Alright! Then I’ll ask: Why don’t you put better questions in here?
Because people like you just complain and don’t come up with better questions, that is why.
Are you a god?
Sure, why not.
Are you the Nils Jeppe who wrote “Objective Earth – Part One (c)1996-1997″? and if so, is there any subsequent work in that storyline/universe available anywhere? or, failing that, have you written any other fiction I should read?
Harry – Thanks for your interest. Yes that was indeed me. I must say I am very surprised someone actually remembers OE. The 2nd Episode of Objective Earth was started, but eventually abandoned. I also wrote the “Tales from Enderra”, which was also never completed, and ran for about 15 shortish episodes. There are various reasons why I never completed them.
I’ll email you, but wanted to reply for the public record as well.
Oh my God, why I never knew?????? :-O
Never knew what?
..that you wrote stuff :-O
Hello Nils. I am Nils. I live in gympie, queensland, australia. I like your website – my wife-to-be says that you sound a lot like me.
I am a recording engineer – aspiring film music composer.
anyhow just thought i’d say hi. So.. hi.
no need to publish this if you don’t want to.
cheers, Nils Ponsaing
Are you the Nils that used to correspond with me about the greatest computer game of all time, Wasteland? Actually I know you are, but I thought it would be fun to ask “Are you the Nils that….” Ha!
I live in Johns Creek, Georgia, USA (look it up on wikipedia). My ancesters on my mother’s side were from Prussia. The story goes that due to royalty being persecuted, one family went with the wife’s maiden name of Kreilkamp which is apparently much more of a commoner name, instead of with the husband’s royal name of von Preuss, so my Mom ended up as a Kreilkamp (then married an Irish-Arab-American combo!). So I’m 1/2 German (Prussian), 1/4 Irish and 1/4 Arab. Hey let’s go to war! (Sorry, it’s in my blood, I can’t help myself.) Auf wieder-web-en!
Just don’t force me to recall any specific topics. It’s been a long time and I am not getting any younger!
haha.
just got married the other day. When we were in the local newspaper office organising getting in declared in the classifieds, the woman behind the counter had a real problem with this..
“The families of candice and nils…(and so on…”
When weasked her to capatalize it, she changed it to Families. when we said “no capatilize Candice and Nils” she said
“oh right… they’re names..!!!
haha