The Nostalgic Nerds Podcast

S2E34 - Jell-O, America's Most Unsettled Triumph

Shout out to Bruce, from Australia for contacting Renee! Feel free to contact us any time.  A perfect moulded jelly used to be a way to show you had money. Someone spent a full day boiling bones and clarifying stock so you could set a shivering centrepiece on the table and let the room see what you could afford. Then it came in a box for pennies, and everyone could have the shape. This week one wobbling dessert travels from aristocratic showpiece to grocery aisle novelty, and we ask what gets lost when you take the work out of something. We'd love to hear from you. Click here to give us ideas on new episodes. [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2521622/fan_mail/new] Join Renee and Marc as they discuss the history of technology, and what it teaches us about now. email us at nostalgicnerdspodcast@gmail.com Come visit us at https://www.nostalgicnerdspodcast.com/episodes or wherever you get your podcasts.

S2E24 Bonus - Ninety-Five

Have you ever witnessed Jell-O reach that special temperature and just...melt away. Too long in the sun and a once solid, but wiggly, dessert turns liquid once again.  That special temperature is a just a bit below average body temperature. Right around Ninety-Five degrees F. So, that's our song this week.  Sorry we're running a bit behind. Schedules and production issues collaborated to keep us a bit late. Enjoy the song and the episode when it comes out. Lyrics below.  [Verse 1] I hold my shape in the chill set in the dark, sitting still firm on the shelf, sealed and sound cold is the thing keeps me round [Pre-Chorus] then the room warms up real slow and the cold finally lets me go [Chorus] Ninety-five (ninety-five) just ninety-five That’s when I come alive keep me cold and I keep my shape When it’s warm, I just escape [Verse 2] they brought me out into the sun picnic day, the warm had won left too long in open air ain’t nothing holding there [Bridge] I keep my whole life on ice steady, careful, cold, precise then they left the ice box wide and now ain’t no more me inside [Final Chorus] Ninety-five (ninety-five) just ninety-five That’s when I come alive keep me cold and I keep my shape When it’s warm, I just escape [Outro - vocal fading] ninety-five warm it up, I'm gone Gone Just melt away We'd love to hear from you. Click here to give us ideas on new episodes. [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2521622/fan_mail/new] Join Renee and Marc as they discuss the history of technology, and what it teaches us about now. email us at nostalgicnerdspodcast@gmail.com Come visit us at https://www.nostalgicnerdspodcast.com/episodes or wherever you get your podcasts.

S2E23 - Come Clean

Somewhere in your house, a machine takes a full day of work off your hands every week, and you've never once thought about how that happened. For most of history, laundry was a whole day, every week. Then we handed the day to a machine. Over a couple hundred years, the washing machine evolved and eventually gave people back a day every week. We'd love to hear from you. Click here to give us ideas on new episodes. [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2521622/fan_mail/new] Join Renee and Marc as they discuss the history of technology, and what it teaches us about now. email us at nostalgicnerdspodcast@gmail.com Come visit us at https://www.nostalgicnerdspodcast.com/episodes or wherever you get your podcasts.

S2E23 Bonus - One Went Missing

Is the washing machine the most important domestic appliance? More important than the refrigerator? Or Renee's favourite call out, the sewing machine? There's a good case to be made for the washing machine. That's what Renee and Marc discuss tomorrow.  But you know with all that time saved from the washing machine, we also got...the missing sock. The one that got away. The sock that went missing. So, today's song is all about the one that slipped out the lint trap to freedom. Song today. Episode tomorrow. Lyrics below: [Verse 1] Warm water. One last turn. A seam in the back, a way to run. Slipped out clean and caught the breeze. Out past the trap to the open air. Left my whole life folded there. [Pre-Chorus] They'll count us tonight. And come up short. I'm nobody's pair no more. [Chorus] One went missing (one went missing) Just one. (Just one) Out past the lint trap, into the sun. Keep my other half folded in the drawer. I'm gone.  I'm nobody's pair no more. (one went missing) [Verse 2] Out the back, the world ran wide. Whole world humming on the other side. No more sorted, bleached, or paired. No more matched, no more compared. Just me. Just road. Just gone. [Pre-Chorus] Count again. Still comin' up short. [Chorus] One went missing (one went missing) Just one. (Just one) Out past the lint trap, chasing the sun. My other half folded in the drawer. I'm gone. I'm nobody's pair no more. (one went missing) [Bridge] Still miss my partner, my fuzzy friend. Toe to heel, the way we grew. But sometimes a sock has to go it alone. [Final Chorus] One went missing (one went missing) Just one. Out past the lint trap, into the sun. You'll keep my place a while, then close the drawer. I'm gone. And I don't ache for home no more. (one went missing) [Outro - vocal fading] One went missing... go it alone... Just one. We'd love to hear from you. Click here to give us ideas on new episodes. [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2521622/fan_mail/new] Join Renee and Marc as they discuss the history of technology, and what it teaches us about now. email us at nostalgicnerdspodcast@gmail.com Come visit us at https://www.nostalgicnerdspodcast.com/episodes or wherever you get your podcasts.

S2E22 - Royalty for Pocket Change

For thousands of years, the colour on your nails marked your rank. Some societies enforced it, and the wrong shade on the wrong person could be a crime. That held for millennia. Then, in about a decade in the twentieth century, it all changed. Modern nail polish is an industrial product, and it came out of the car business. In the 1920s, carmakers needed a paint that dried in minutes, and the answer was a lacquer made from nitrocellulose, the guncotton left over from First World War explosives. The same chemistry runs through early film, the first plastics, the paint on a model kit, and the resin in a 3D printer. Marc and Renee trace it from a mark of royalty to a shelf at the local salon. Shout out to Lilly's in Maidstone - https://www.instagram.com/lillysnailsmaidstone or https://lillysnailsmaidstone.mytreatwell.co.uk/ We'd love to hear from you. Click here to give us ideas on new episodes. [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2521622/fan_mail/new] Join Renee and Marc as they discuss the history of technology, and what it teaches us about now. email us at nostalgicnerdspodcast@gmail.com Come visit us at https://www.nostalgicnerdspodcast.com/episodes or wherever you get your podcasts.