Fright Night and All Star Jam Hit the Shelves

Looks like the new Fright Night line by Hogshead Publishing is officially underway. Unfortunately, I don't have an official web page to link to for the series, but the first book in the line is on the shelves in Portland, Oregon as of this week.

The first book is called Haunted House, an appropriate title in what is to be a modern horror line patterened after the spate of "realistic" horror movies that have been released in the last dozen years. My own contributions to the line - What Went Down and Ghost Ship - are slated as the third and sixth releases in the line, respectively. I'm not sure when they'll be in the stores, but I believe Hogshead is aiming to release the series fairly quickly. I'll post more when I know.

On the Steve Jackson Games front, GURPS All Star Jam 2004 is finally available. I haven't seen a copy of it yet, but should have a comp on my front porch any day now. The book is a team effort and looks to hold some great information on various topics. My own bit is a look at the golden age of airships - a nice adjunct to Cliffhangers, I hope.

All Star Jam follows hot on the heels of GURPS SWAT, which was released in December, and GURPS WWII: All the King's Men, which came out last month. That's four new releases in three months; wonder if I should call Guiness...

Making the Grade

Been asked a lot lately how school is going, and sadly my answer is generally something like, "Sorry, don't have time to talk, gotta get to class." So a quick update is in order, I think, before I head out of town to register for a CNA program:

First Biology Test (Cell Structure and Function, Cellular Respiration): 98%
Second Biology Test (Blood, Circulatory System, Immune System): Tomorrow
Psychology Midterm Paper: A
EMT Test 1 (Medicolegal, Safety, History): 100%
EMT Test 2 (CPR, Lifting and Moving Patients): 88%
EMT Test 3 (Patient Assessment): 94%
EMT Test 4 (Documentation, Communication, Geriatric Assessment): Tonight

Not terribly informative, but at least you regular blog readers now know I'm not really dead or MIA.

At Least There's No Playtest

Despite the earlier elation caused by a 98% score on my biology exam, and an un-blogged 100% on my first EMT exam, things are beginning to get a little more stressful as I'm nearing midterm. My psychology instructor has decided that rather than giving a midterm exam, he'd like a midterm paper on some aspect of psychology we've covered in the first half of the class. How many pages? I asked the same question. His reply was a succint, but less-than-informative, "As many as you need to adequately cover the material." Geh. He did mention he didn't want a 30-page report ("Don't do that to me," he said), but otherwise I have a very limited idea of how big, how in-depth, or how detailed this paper needs to be.

Having spent the last 5+ years writing full-time, I'm obviously not terribly concerned with the actual writing process. But I'm used to writing with a contract, an outline, some previous work to look at and say, "this is what it should look like." Without those things, I'm feeling a bit out of sorts while working on this project.

As part of PSYCH 111, I've had to turn in a weekly journal that reflects my thoughts and opinions on the material covered that week, but that's a far cry from a midterm paper. My instructor mentioned that "ambiguity" is part of the college process, and it makes me wonder if his vagueness in this assignment is, unto itself, a form of testing his students, simply to see what path they take or how they deal with the assignment.

Personally, I'd prefer a much more structured - and less ambiguous - approach to the midterm. But I'm not in charge.