various & Con rooms from Carlson, Pam on 1997-06-19 (Glorantha Digest Vol 04)

From: Carlson, Pam <carlsonp_at_wdni.com>
Date: Thu, 19 Jun 1997 13:18:00 -0700

Con stuff:
I am reserving two suites for the con. So far there are six of us - Dennis Hoover & his wife Barbara, David Dunham and his wife Elise, myself and Dana, one of our SFC fellows. We need two more people interested in splitting suite space/costs. (Hint - for all of you attending w/ females or who are female - suites have their own bathroom. The doubles have none. Instead, each hall has a giant shared bathroom.)
Suites are slightly more expensive than the doubles, but they also have a small kitchen in them. If anyone is interested, e-mail me at carlsonp_at_wdni.com.

There have been a few debate points made that touted the humble toasted cheese sandwich as a shining example of something that is real. Real yes, universal... no.

In fact, we have it from Martin Laurie, (the Official Glorantha Digest Commisar of Arrogance, if you didn't know), that -

(brace yourselves)

in England, a toasted cheese sandwich is just FRIED BREAD! Yup - that's right. They just pop the bread in a pan and fry it in butter - no cheese, nothing. (It's true! Even MOB commented on it after a Convulsions a while ago.)

We in the southern branch of the Seattle Farmer's Cooperative immediately realized that this custom must have arisen from an aching desire for warm toast.

So, you can see that even in the real world, even such a simple thing as a toasted cheese sandwich can take on different masks.

troll wombs:

>Single birth embryos emplant in a randomly selected section of the lining.
Some of these find good sites and become Uzko, some find marginal sites and become Value Enlo, and some find poor sites and become miscarriages within a short time,

This could work for trolls, but don't think that it reflects the average mammal (in case it ever comes up in the real world). A zygote can inplant just about anywhere in a uterus - even in the fallopian tubes. The entire uturus will supply blood to the developing embro at any uterine site just about equally.

The only exception I know of is with mammals that bear multiple young in a two horned uterus (like dogs). The embryos inplanted near the mouth of the uterus receive a better blood supply than those at the far ends of the horns. Thus, the biggest pups tend to be at the entrance and are born first, while the smallest are in the back and are born last. Although the puppies' placentas do attach to the walls of the uterus at different locations, there are no pre-defined "sites" along the uterine wall.

In the real world, variations in embryo survival are usually genetic. I've read that up to 30% of embryos conceived in humans are spontaneously aborted in the first two weeks, probably due to severe genetic anomalies. Many women get pregnant and never realize it. Likewise, animals who have large litters undoubtely concieve more embryos than they carry to term.

I'll stop now...

Pam