Metatalktail Hour: Updates, Conclusions and To-Be-Continueds

August 12, 2023 10:03 AM

The locked safe from this prior metatalktails has been opened, just a little too late to put the resolution in that post. (Local news link - archive link if you can't access original)

short version if you just want a summary

The safe was mostly empty save some odds and ends and another locked compartment, which was also empty.

What's a story you'd like a update or resolution to? Can be a real life event, a series that you yearn for more of, or a problem you'd like a solution to.

And of course, as always, feel free to ignore the prompt and tell us whatever non-political things are on your mind.

posted by the primroses were over to MetaFilter-Related at 10:03 AM (34 comments total)

Oh geez, this is all so wholesome, how lovely!
posted by Kattullus at 11:31 AM on August 12, 2023 [2 favorites]

I was right, nothing, well, almost.
posted by clavdivs at 12:48 PM on August 12, 2023 [2 favorites]

keep wondering what the last 1/4th or so of Infinite Jest would have been

like, probably bad, but
posted by cortex (retired) at 5:27 PM on August 12, 2023 [2 favorites]

In the American Gods series, I really wanted to see if Laura would ever reunite with her leprechaun, either on the earthly plane or elsewhere. I suspect not, but since it wasn't a plotline in the actual book there isn't any way to know.

Someone recently reminded me of the show Flash Forward which got canceled after one season and left a shit ton of questions unanswered. After being fucked over by this show, Firefly and Jericho I was reluctant to start a new TV series for years.
posted by Serene Empress Dork at 6:48 PM on August 12, 2023 [4 favorites]

Ammazzini opened the safe late Thursday evening, but the collective of Red Emma’s worker-owners decided to wait to inspect the contents until Friday morning.

Or at least that’s the cover story.
posted by zamboni at 7:28 PM on August 12, 2023 [2 favorites]

What's a story you'd like a update or resolution to?

I want to know how the little skunk family out back is doing. Late June, we saw a big fluffy skunk that was actually an average sized skunk with couple of adorable baby skunks scurrying along under her(?) tail. Early July, I saw them rooting around in the yard one night in a little group and took pictures of them. (The pictures, taken quickly on a phone from a safe distance, feature some white blobs on a dark blurry background.)

I hope I didn't freak them out and that they're living happily somewhere in the woods!

Also hoping to see some of the tadpoles in the kiddy pool grow up. We seem to have markedly less than we started with... not sure if the downpours wash some of them out, or if we gave them too much algae and shade, or if birds eat them, or if some grew up and hopped out when I wasn't looking
posted by Baethan at 9:26 PM on August 12, 2023 [2 favorites]

Another locked compartment! I WAS RIGHT. There was a second safe inside!!!
posted by blnkfrnk at 12:11 AM on August 13, 2023 [3 favorites]

I would love to see a the rest of Terra Nova, which ended after one season with not so much a cliffhanger as a plot twist that didn't go anywhere yet. I'm still wondering what they had in mind.

(Don't let this discourage you, it's still worth watching if you like this kind of thing.)
posted by demi-octopus at 12:17 AM on August 13, 2023

This is Metafilter-specific:

Has anyone moved somewhere new based on a "Where Should I Move?" Ask, and if so, where did you move, and how did it work out?
posted by champers at 4:12 AM on August 13, 2023 [13 favorites]

Adjacent to champers' question, I find it so cool that this local woman has successfully encouraged so many people to move to Peoria, Illinois. I've met a couple people who said her videos were a major impetus in their choosing our city!
posted by obfuscation at 6:38 AM on August 13, 2023 [3 favorites]

I can't begin to figure out how many times the local FOX affiliate used to show Buckaroo Banzai when I was a kid growing up in southwest Michigan (Channel 17!), but it was a lot. I watched it every time it was on, and I was way, way too young to understand that the whole thing was a pastiche based on old serials, like Indiana Jones had been for old adventure serials, but for science fiction. I took the whole insane thing, including the fans with their decoder rings, at face value.

That's why I am still waiting for Buckaroo Banzai: Against the World Crime League.

(link goes to possibly the coolest poster ever created for movie that doesn't exist, with a perfect dream cast)
posted by Ghidorah at 8:09 AM on August 13, 2023 [13 favorites]

I want to know how the little skunk family out back is doing.

We are about to attempt a rescue of a juvenile hedgehog. We saw him wandering our back path in broad daylight, which my partner said was a bad sign, and he's only little. We have just checked with the local refuge and they confirmed it's a bad sign and that he's probably just left his mother and is a bit confused. They suggested grabbing him if possible to ensure his safety, feed him and, I assume, turn him over to them.
posted by biffa at 9:59 AM on August 13, 2023 [7 favorites]

biffa: best of luck and you must let us know what happens!!
posted by Baethan at 10:44 AM on August 13, 2023 [1 favorite]

I'm not unhappy with how the book resolved, but I'd really love a sequel to Sunshine. It's such an interesting world and Sunshine and her friends and family are fascinating characters.
posted by EvaDestruction at 12:52 PM on August 13, 2023 [6 favorites]

Not an answer to the question, but related: I would love a definitive website telling me whether any given show's last episode was actually the last episode the creators intended. I can't always tell from Wikipedia whether a show got cancelled, or just not renewed, and how much the creators knew before decisions were made by network execs. I can imagine some writers thinking, "Well, we never know whether this is our last season, so let's make EVERY season finale work as an ending."

As someone who enjoys serial storytelling, I'd just like to know for sure which stories ended where their creators wanted them to.
posted by kristi at 1:44 PM on August 13, 2023 [7 favorites]

I always want to know what you named the pet. I love when people post follow-ups.
posted by theora55 at 2:02 PM on August 13, 2023 [6 favorites]

My first pet, when I was 12, was a black cat that of course I named "Snowball". (many years before The Simpsons stole my unique idea!)
posted by Greg_Ace at 2:54 PM on August 13, 2023 [1 favorite]

My first real "I'm an adult, and this pet is my responsibility" pet was named by my partner at the time. My second, though, currently imitating a loaf of bread covered in black fur in the middle of the floor behind me? I named her Gazpacho.

Any future cat will be named Vichyssoise, unless somehow we end up with a Russian Blue, in which case they will be named Borscht.
posted by Ghidorah at 4:36 PM on August 13, 2023 [1 favorite]

My youngest child's chosen name is Everest. Their cat (adopted last fall) is named Elizabeth Frankenstein which we commonly shorten to Frankie. Before realizing that the cat already had a name, a friend of mine suggested that we could name her K2 since Everest is supposed to be the cat's human. Still wishing we had thought of that earlier, but hopefully Everest will have many more cats throughout their life and one of their future cats can have that name.
posted by Ceridwen at 5:17 PM on August 13, 2023 [2 favorites]

where ever you go.
posted by clavdivs at 6:40 PM on August 13, 2023 [1 favorite]

don't forget the combo
posted by clavdivs at 6:42 PM on August 13, 2023

Here is a situation that has been bothering me for decades. First, I have to recall my HS or Junior high school science. I start with the assumption that air is everywhere except in a vacuum. If that is pretty much accurate, why doesn't my bread get stale in the bag? It gets hard if I leave it on the counter. I do have a vague recollection that they put nitrogen or some other gas than oxygen in the bread plant when bagging the freshly cooked loaf. When I leave a slice of Martin's on the counter, within an hour it is stale/crunchy. In the bag, it will last over a week.

Why, if there is air everywhere including the bag, doesn't the bread go bad as quickly as it does out of the bag?
posted by JohnnyGunn at 1:01 AM on August 14, 2023 [1 favorite]

Another series of episodes of Wolf Hall, please.
posted by sundrop at 5:51 AM on August 14, 2023 [1 favorite]

Bread stales more slowly inside a bag cause there's LESS air to take up the moisture that's fleeing the bread's starch
posted by Baethan at 6:08 AM on August 14, 2023 [1 favorite]

Staling is really a combination of two effects: retrogradation of starch and moisture loss. Industrial bread that comes in a plastic bag is full of ingredients such as fat that slow the retrogradation of starch, and the plastic bag slows moisture loss considerably. This is why industrial bread stays "fresh" for quite some time when stored in the plastic bag, whereas lean breads go stale within a few days unless frozen. As you have observed, if you leave a slice of industrial bread on the counter it will dry out fairly quickly because quite a bit of surface area is exposed for evaporation. It's worth noting, however, that dry bread and stale bread aren't necessarily the same thing, even though they usually go hand-in-hand. Toast, for example, is dry but not stale. This is to say that a slice left out on the counter might be dry within an hour, but may not be all that stale.
posted by slkinsey at 10:06 AM on August 14, 2023 [4 favorites]

Putting a celery stick in the bread bag helps keep the bread moist for longer.
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:56 AM on August 14, 2023

always use fresh bread, if possible, for making crotons.
posted by clavdivs at 1:06 PM on August 14, 2023

Thank you slkinsey. That had been bothering me for way too long. Now I know.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 6:10 PM on August 14, 2023

I would still like another season of Pitch.

In general, I think there are more books and movies that could do with more editing than could do with less, but I'm still always interested in deleted scenes and the bits and bobs that get excised for the good of the whole. Here's Ruth Reichl in her substack on a recipe her editor made her leave out of her memoir about her stint as editor of Gourmet.
posted by the primroses were over at 3:50 AM on August 15, 2023 [1 favorite]

I wonder what happened to the Utopia gang after Wilson Wilson took over The Network. I wonder what happened to the various hubots in Äkta människor (the Channel 4 Humans version doesn't really count for me). I wonder what it would be like if Bryan Fuller ever got to actually finish anything. Most of all, I'd like one more season of Lodge 49.
posted by Grangousier at 11:43 AM on August 15, 2023

Has anyone moved somewhere new based on a "Where Should I Move?" Ask, and if so, where did you move, and how did it work out?

Me! I did it! I moved to Astoria, Oregon based in part on the answers to this question. Yes, I moved across the country thanks to Metafilter and honestly? 11/10, would do it again. I love it here. Sure, there have been some hiccups - nobody told me about west coast geologic instability and what that does to 70 year old house foundations and if I had known that my entire family was going to follow me here I would have looked harder for a bigger house - but all in all, I'm so very grateful to be here. I love Oregon. I love being twenty minutes from the ocean. And I was never going to find another professional job in Asheville but here? I got a career back and I make a living damn wage.
posted by mygothlaundry at 9:35 AM on August 16, 2023 [13 favorites]

I love John M. Ford beyond all reason. His unfinished last work, Aspects, was published last April. I've kept it beside the bed ever since. I have no idea how he was going to wrap the thing up. There were going to be multiple books; in the back of this one are the sonnets that were going to serve as the opener for each.

I wish Ford hadn't died in 2006, and that he had had time to finish Aspects, or at least to get further into it.
posted by Pallas Athena at 4:13 PM on August 16, 2023 [2 favorites]

I am super late to this thread, but the answer to my AskMe from 2017, Will I ever know how She Hates My Futon ends? thus far is no, though the author did reach out to the mods a little freaked out by why the fuck this website was giving his old story traffic.

Also, looking back on at least 95% of my Ask questions, I wish I could go and mark them with: resolved, turns out I am autistic and this is not a problem to be solved, especially not by trying to act neurotypical.
posted by the thorn bushes have roses at 2:01 PM on August 23, 2023 [3 favorites]

UPDATE: We weren't able to grab the juvenile hedgehog - by the time we had the proper way to do it sorted and spoke to local rescue people he had disappeared under the fence into next door's vegetation. We have been keeping an eye out in case he wanders around in the day time again but not seen him as yet. We have seen an adult a couple of times since and are leaving out the approved food for them.
posted by biffa at 2:46 AM on September 4, 2023 [2 favorites]