It's time to get specific. In this episode, my longtime friend Matt joins me to discuss my physical fitness goals, and methods. We discuss Matt's success from using Arnold's Pump Club app, and we discuss my efforts to complete a modified version of the BUD/S Warning Order workout. We also touch on men's mental health, and commit to revisiting that topic in a later episode.

I'm switching things up for awhile. Eventually, regular episodes will return, but at the moment, the time has come to explain why those regular episodes (and even special episodes) have been so few and far between over the last couple of years. I sat down with my longtime friend, Jen, to discuss a process I began shortly before turning forty, and which continues at present. I've decided to call this process "Operation Alchemy," and in today's episode (recorded just before Christmas), Jen and I discuss its origins, and what it entails.

In today's episode, Mike and I reflect upon our personal experiences with Frank Herbert's Dune and its ensuing pop culture incarnations, then we discuss the infamous Alejandro Jodorowsky interpretation that never made it to film, and finally touch briefly on prospects for the newest franchise's upcoming conclusion. This episode was actually the fifth one that we recorded, but it's getting released as the last episode of the first cache of Nerd Rants, because reasons.

In today's episode, Mike and I discuss Academy Award winning filmmaker Martin Scorcese's ongoing denigration of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and explain why we think that the octegenarian creator of critically acclaimed rubbish like The Last Temptation of Christ and The Irishman has erred in his decision to trash big budget superhero films like Iron Man, Iron Man 2, Iron Man 3, Captain America: The First Avenger, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Captain America: Civil War, Thor, Thor: The Dark World, Thor: Ragnarok, Thor: Love and Thunder, Guardians of the Galaxy, Guardians of the Galaxy 2, Guardians of the Galaxy 3, Black Panther, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, and other classics of modern cinema. Stay tuned!

In this abbreviated exchange, I tell Mike about my idea for a sequel to the 2013 installment in the JJ Abrams Star Trek reboot film series. How could the notorious flop of Star Trek Into Darkness be redeemed, in a manner similar to the way that Avengers: Endgame managed to redeem the lackluster story told in Thor: The Dark World? Keep listening and find out.

In today's episode, Mike and I discuss our individual experiences with the Star Trek franchise, and what it's been like to see the franchise evolve over the course of the last few years.

In today's episode, Mike and I discuss the current state of the Star Wars franchise under Disney, and my idea for how Disney could make lemonade from the proverbial lemons yielded by the premature demise of their multi-billion dollar Galactic Starcruiser hotel at Walt Disney World Resort. How could Disney recoup those expenses and turn so much hard work into something successful? Keep listening and find out. And also, please note that we discussed this before The Acolyte was released, but we basically could have recorded it after and there would have been no major changes. Also, rest in peace, Carl Weathers.

In today's episode, we discuss a classic true story of Cold War espionage, The Cuckoo's Egg by Cliff Stoll, and my opportunity to meet Cliff back in mid-2022. In the closing years of the Cold War, this eccentric astronomer-turned-system administrator managed to track a KGB hacker through his university’s supercomputer, and basically invented digital forensics in the process. The story itself, and my opportunity to meet him, are both worth chatting about, so that’s what we did. 

In a new interim season of the Bruck Podcast, entitled Nerd Rants - more on all of this to come in an upcoming updates episode - I talk to my neighbor, Cam, about my favorite audiobook: World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, by Max Brooks. Despite the fact that most of the remaining episodes of this interim season were recorded in February of 2024, this one was recorded - and published - just in time for Halloween!

In this special episode, I remember my friend Dave Gray, the former Senior Editor at BBC Radio Orkney, who died on February 21st, aged 63.