Ruminations

Chris and Steve are back for the second episode of Ruminations in 2026 and their twenty-fifth episode overall! And Episode XXV contains topics galore: we discuss the Disney parks (of course), the recent “Zoomer horror” movie Backrooms, tattoos, and, most shockingly, sports! Why did Chris decide to like sports in 2026? How was it taking a toddler to the Most Magical Place on Earth? Which Disney character interacted with Steve in an unexpectedly movie-accurate scenario? Is the PATH train station a “liminal space”? And what object of interest did Christ end up getting permanently drawn on his arm? Give us a listen, and happy America 250, everyone!

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Credits

Intro & Outro:
“Sanctuary of the Sky Gods” by Nathaniel Wyvern, CC BY 4.0 via freemusicarchive.org

Intro quotes:
The Big Lebowski (Gramercy Pictures)
Inglourious Basterds (The Weinstein Company)
Goldfinger (United Artists)
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (Buena Vista Pictures)
The Shining (Warner Bros)
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (New Line Cinema)
Game of Thrones (Warner Bros/HBO)

Featured Image credit:
Composite, featuring personal photos and images of Winnie the Pooh, Plantation rum, the NBA Finals and FIFA World Cup trophies, a bust of Agrippa, a Porg doll from Disney’s Galaxy’s Edge, and Rummy the Parrot from Disney’s Beak & Barrel restaurant, all via Google Images. Oh, and Chris and Steve as celebrity Knicks fans Timothée Chalamet and Ben Stiller, respectively (via Instagram).

Ruminations is made with Jetpack Podcast. Full show notes and every episode at https://ruminationspod.com/

Chris and Steve are back for Ruminations Episode XXIV to talk about… things? After a very busy second half of 2025, we felt it would be good to reconnect with our listeners (multiple, according to Chris!) and discuss some of the media we consumed during the year, though, of course, without planning for our conversation in the slightest. What concert did Steve feel FOMO for before realizing he was better off skipping out? Which horror audiobook had Chris lowering his radio as he drove through the suburbs with his window down? Was a certain 7-minute “AI slop” video the best piece of pop culture we saw all year? Should Chris get a tattoo? What topics do you want us to record episodes on in 2026? Happy new year, dear listeners!

– Listen on Apple

– Listen on Spotify

Credits

Intro & Outro:
“Sanctuary of the Sky Gods” by Nathaniel Wyvern, CC BY 4.0 via freemusicarchive.org

Intro quotes:
The Big Lebowski (Gramercy Pictures)
Inglourious Basterds (The Weinstein Company)
Goldfinger (United Artists)
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (Buena Vista Pictures)
The Shining (Warner Bros)
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (New Line Cinema)
Game of Thrones (Warner Bros/HBO)

Featured Image credit:
Composite, featuring personal photo and images of Mike Myers as Dr. Evil, Jim Carrey as the Grinch, Seinfeld LittlePeople, August Caesar, Ghost-on-a-Shelf, and the Balrog and Sauron from WickedAI’s “Lord of the Rings Disco: One Funk to Rule Them All“

Ruminations is made with Jetpack Podcast. Full show notes and every episode at https://ruminationspod.com/

In honor of Chris’ birthday, Ruminations is finally dropping its twenty-third episode. One night not so long ago, Chris and Steve decided to talk about Disney villains (because Chris likes scouring YouTube for Disney villain rankings in his spare time). The goal was to simply prepare for a future episode on the topic, but the hourlong conversation was “too funny” so they stopped what they were doing, pressed record, and restarted their banter. Thus Episode XXIII: An Impromptu Disney Villains Roundup. What’s the better ranking system: Top 3 or “Mount Rushmore of…”? Which movie did Chris relate to as a child because he went to preschool in Paterson? Does Steve correctly remember the plot of Hamlet 15 years after reading it? (He does not.) Which villain does Chris keep interrupting Steve to deride over and over (and over) again? How much editing is really needed to pull an episode like this together? Give us a listen!

– Listen on Apple

– Listen on Spotify

Credits

Intro & Outro:
“Sanctuary of the Sky Gods” by Nathaniel Wyvern, CC BY 4.0 via freemusicarchive.org

Intro quotes:
The Big Lebowski (Gramercy Pictures)
Inglourious Basterds (The Weinstein Company)
Goldfinger (United Artists)
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (Buena Vista Pictures)
The Shining (Warner Bros)
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (New Line Cinema)
Game of Thrones (Warner Bros/HBO)

Featured Image credit:
Composite, featuring images of various Disney villains

Ruminations is made with Jetpack Podcast. Full show notes and every episode at https://ruminationspod.com/

Welcome to Year 6 of Ruminations! Chris and Steve begin the new year with a discussion of Robert Eggers’ acclaimed remake of Nosferatu, a look back at 2024, and what we’re looking forward to in 2025 (if we can even think of anything). How, according to Chris, did the notoriously detail-oriented Eggers drop the ball? Can either of us talk about any of the characters in Nosferatu without calling them by their Dracula counterparts? What did we think of the 2006 Dracula-themed book, The Historian? How many episodes of TV did Steve watch while on paternity leave? Is Chris still miffed that Mufasa exists? What Zoomer slang ensured Steve’s fantasy football victory? Happy New Year!

– Listen on Apple

– Listen on Spotify

Credits

Intro & Outro:
“Sanctuary of the Sky Gods” by Nathaniel Wyvern, CC BY 4.0 via freemusicarchive.org

Intro quotes:
The Big Lebowski (Gramercy Pictures)
Inglourious Basterds (The Weinstein Company)
Goldfinger (United Artists)
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (Buena Vista Pictures)
The Shining (Warner Bros)
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (New Line Cinema)
Game of Thrones (Warner Bros/HBO)

Sound credit:
“One eternity later” from Spongebob Squarepants; downloaded from YouTube

Featured Image credit:
Composite, featuring images of Nicholas Hoult and Aaron Taylor-Johnson from Nosferatu (2024), Max Schreck from Nosferatu (1922), Spongebob Squarepants (2002), and personal photos

Ruminations is made with Jetpack Podcast. Full show notes and every episode at https://ruminationspod.com/

After a yearlong hiatus, Ruminations is back with Episode 21, the last episode before co-host Steve becomes a father! To mark this occasion (and the possibility of an even longer hiatus), Steve and Chris return to their roots: discussing the good, the bad, and the ugly of Disney. This time around, it’s mostly the Disney theme parks and their controversial changes of recent years, with a sprinkling of TV and movie talk. Which Disney landmark, according to Chris, is no longer safe? Did Steve ever finish The Acolyte? Did Chris come up with a better plot for an unnecessary Disney prequel nearly 20 years before it was announced IRL? Can one have nostalgia for a place first visited at the age of 20? How did Steve not die while drinking (and eating cheese) Around the World last summer? Come for Chris’s burning hatred of a thousand suns, stay for Steve’s inability to say “paella” and a surprise cameo appearance!

– Listen on iTunes

– Listen on Spotify

Credits

Intro & Outro:
“Sanctuary of the Sky Gods” by Nathaniel Wyvern, CC BY 4.0 via freemusicarchive.org

Intro quotes:
The Big Lebowski (Gramercy Pictures)
Inglourious Basterds (The Weinstein Company)
Goldfinger (United Artists)
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (Buena Vista Pictures)
The Shining (Warner Bros)
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (New Line Cinema)
Game of Thrones (Warner Bros/HBO)

Featured Image credit:
Composite image, featuring images of Bob Iger, Splash Mountain, Mr Toad’s Wild Ride, and The Acolyte (via Google) and personal photos

Ruminations is made with Jetpack Podcast. Full show notes and every episode at https://ruminationspod.com/

Ruminations is back for the third and final episode of our Star Wars trilogy, and like the characters in Rogue One, we’re going out with a bang! Not only is Episode XX three hours long, but we have, for the first time ever, two guests! Our good friends Rob and John, possibly the biggest Star Wars fans we know, joined us to discuss the countless books and video games that comprised the Star Wars Expanded Universe for over 20 years, its transformation into “Star Wars Legends” after Disney’s purchase of Lucasfilm a decade ago, and the new Disney canon of cartoons, live-action shows, one-off movies, and more. Plus, we chat about collectables! Oh, and there’s lots of Knights of the Old Republic talk and even more Knights of the Old Republic II talk. This is a really fun one, guys!

– Listen on iTunes

– Listen on Spotify

Credits

Intro & Outro:
“Sanctuary of the Sky Gods” by Nathaniel Wyvern, CC BY 4.0 via freemusicarchive.org

Intro quotes:
The Big Lebowski (Gramercy Pictures)
Inglourious Basterds (The Weinstein Company)
Goldfinger (United Artists)
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (Buena Vista Pictures)
The Shining (Warner Bros)
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (New Line Cinema)
Game of Thrones (Warner Bros/HBO)

Featured Image credit:
Composite image/FLIPP, featuring a collage of Star Wars Legends images and personal photos

Ruminations is made with Jetpack Podcast. Full show notes and every episode at https://ruminationspod.com/

Somehow, Ruminations returned… for a second Star Wars episode! This time around, Chris and Steve are joined by their old friend Frank for a look back at a trio of root canals put to celluloid: the ill-planned and ill-executed Disney sequel trilogy. Who hates the trilogy the most? Which of the three is the best (of the worst)? Was Frank subjecting himself to nearly 9 hours of torture just to be a guest on this episode worth it? We know this is a long one, folks, but there is a surprise at the end if you can make it that far–we talk about an infamous Star Wars… thing… that has a higher pedigree than even Empire Strikes Back. We’ll leave it at that. [Note: when we recorded, Disney had not yet announced that its Galactic Star Cruiser dumpster fire of a hotel was closing. It’s definitely closing. Yub nub!]

– Listen on iTunes

– Listen on Spotify

Credits

Intro & Outro:
“Sanctuary of the Sky Gods” by Nathaniel Wyvern, CC BY 4.0 via freemusicarchive.org

Intro quotes:

Featured Image credit:

Ruminations is made with Jetpack Podcast. Full show notes and every episode at https://ruminationspod.com/

A surprise to be sure, but a welcome one! In the first of (at least) three episodes focused on a certain long-running space opera franchise, Chris and Steven discuss the goofy, lovable Star Wars prequels with a very special guest star: Diana, Steve’s wife of 9 months. Why do they love these movies so much? Has the trilogy been redeemed in the last two decades? What color lightsaber does Chris yearn for? All this, and more, in Episode XVIII of Ruminations!

https://ruminationspod.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/18.-ruminations-episode-xviii-the-prequels.mp3

– Listen on iTunes

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Credits

Intro & Outro:

Intro quotes:

Featured Image credit:

Ruminations is made with Jetpack Podcast. Full show notes and every episode at https://ruminationspod.com/

Ruminations is back for our seventeenth episode, this time to talk about the two prequels to juggernaut fantasy series that premiered in September, HBO’s Game of Thrones: House of the Dragon and Amazon Prime’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. For the second time this year, this is the second version of an episode that we, Chris and Steve, recorded. Before you ask, no, no one was too drunk this time! Back in August, we recorded a grab bag episode about our respective summer trips, interesting stuff we recently watched, a wedding and a 30th birthday, and ended with our varying degrees of apprehension towards HoD and RoP, but since each show finished its first season before we could edit the episode… we decided to re-record and focus on the shows in full. We hope you enjoy this episode as much as we each enjoyed one of the shows over the other.

https://ruminationspod.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/17.-ruminations-episode-xvii-house-of-power-rings-of-dragons-1.mp3

– Listen on iTunes

– Listen on Spotify

Credits

Intro & Outro:

Intro quotes:

Featured Image credit:

Ruminations is made with Jetpack Podcast. Full show notes and every episode at https://ruminationspod.com/

In an episode two months in the making, Chris and Steve delve into the heart of darkness to explore five of the most famous Vietnam War movies made in the aftermath of the war in the 1970s and 80s. Which version of Apocalypse Now is best? Why is The Deer Hunter so dull? Which of us grew up thinking Full Metal Jacket was a comedy? Why does Vietnam have such a visceral place in our pop culture and collective memory? Stay to the end for a game of “Would You Rather?” and a glimpse into the first time we recorded this episode–yes, we liked this topic so much, we talked about it twice! (But only Chris remembers that.) Episode 16 is messy, a bit overlong, and has a dubious history reminiscent of its subject matter, but what else do you expect from this duo?

https://ruminationspod.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/16.-ruminations-episode-xvi-apocalypse-now-redrunks-1.mp3

– Listen on iTunes

– Listen on Spotify

Credits

Intro & Outro:

Intro quotes:

Featured Image credit:

Ruminations is made with Jetpack Podcast. Full show notes and every episode at https://ruminationspod.com/