Mark and Toddcast

Looking for a fun holiday excursion or something to do with out-of-town folk? Why not take a tour of some of Portland's finest hand-made chocolatiers? Mark takes us on a first-hand journey -- with samples! -- to some of the best. All that, as well as a look at "Greedflation," retail stores lying about consumer theft, PlayStation takes your purchased movies back, Oregon's first humanoid robot company, Texas wants to leave the union (so do it already, Texas!), "rizz," a new rhino at the Oregon zoo, and someone gets assaulted by a sausage. It's a Christmas miracle!

This week Todd is joined by co-host of the NotNerd podcast Nate Heath to discuss everything from flying hamburgers, to Portland's new ice rink, "super pigs," woolly mammoth resurrection, Banksy's identity, retailers lying about theft issues, and a closer look at some of the successful Universal Basic Income experiments happening all over the United States. Be sure to subscribe to the NotNerd podcast wherever you get your podcasts!

Fonts didn't suddenly spring into existence with the word processor in the 1980s. In fact, fonts have been around since people have been writing things down, back to 8500 BC. Take a ride with us to see how we go from cuneiform to comic sans on this episode.

From tracing apps to stranded astronauts to MDMA to Lloyd Center to ABBA to Best Buy to Netflix to Twinkies to the Jantzen Beach carousel to black holes to photons to Costco selling out of gold bars, I think we pretty much cover everything in this episode.

The human body is 2.5% metal, which we need in order to produce electricity, heal our skin, and make us move and think, among other things. We're not saying we're robots, but we're sort of robots. This week we dive into the weird world of metals, and how exactly our bodies need and use them to pilot the other 97.5% of us that's an organic, goopy pile of flesh and guts.

This week we discuss both the question "What exactly is radiation?" as well as the history of the most ubiquitous word on the entire planet: "OK." Where did it come from? How did this tiny word take over the whole world? All that, plus lots of Portland news, and angry Furries fighting on beaches. Enjoy, ok?

After discussing how submarines surface and dive (in other words, "how do you store buoyancy?) and our one-of-a-kind "Just the Headlines!" segment, we take a look into the history of red food dye, and what to look out for if you want to avoid the "bad" kind of food coloring. Spoilers: You want the dye made from smashed up bugs grown on a cactus. Now go paint the town red!

This week we veer from Netflix to Amazon to Silver Falls  to asking the most important question: wtf is going on with TikTok's new NPC trend? We try to make sense of it all on this week's show. Enjoy it like ice cream yum yum.

Todd recaps his recent vacation to eastern Idaho, Craters of the Moon, and Mark's old Navy training area, and recent science/Portland news. Then we take a look into the real-life Johnny Appleseed. Was he a mythical Paul Bunyan story, or was he a real person? Find out this week.

Most of us maybe know one thing about George Washington Carver -- that he invented peanut butter. Not only is that not true, but his work with peanuts was just a tiny slice of the botanical and agricultural advances - from crop rotation to use of organic fertilizers - he pioneered. Find out more on this week's show.