my opinion matters

I am addicted to watching television. In the grand scheme of things, it seems like no big deal, because it isn't illegal and technically I'm not doing any self-harm. Except that I am. My obsession is making my brain less functional, it's keeping me overweight, and it makes me less sociable and angrier. It ensures I do not meet my fitness goals because all I want to do is sit in front of the television and watch. And watch. And watch. And what am I getting out of it? I'm not enriching my life in any way. Watching Grey's Anatomy does not help me in my life, except maybe make me more of a hypochondriac, and trust me, if you ask my fiancé, that doesn't make anyone's life better. A few months ago I quit Hulu because I was annoyed at their pricing. The crazy thing is it didn't really bother me. At first I wondered what was happening on This Is Us or Scandal , but after a few weeks I realized I didn't care. It didn't affect my life in any of the w...

My podcast no longer exists. I was using the Opinion app to record and publish my podcast, and they are closing down the app, which is a huge bummer because all of the other free options for hosting are, for lack of a better word, crappy. So I'm over it for now and will try to blog more. Speaking of which, I have now quit The Orville , Me Myself & I , and The Good Doctor . I have picked up Mom , inexplicably, and am watching all the old seasons of Will & Grace . The new one was funny but just not relevant anymore. I worry that's what will happen with new Roseanne  too, and that bums me out. I just want a really awesome show that is funny and dramatic and interesting. I want another LOST  that doesn't make horrible mistakes and end up in purgatory. I want another Terra Nova  that doesn't get canceled after one season. I want a new Gilmore Girls , Friday Night Lights  Season 1, Frasier , or something that actually makes me excited to watch it every...

I just updated the RSS feed for My Opinion Matters, so I’m hoping that means it auto updates to iTunes and Google Play. It would have to, right? Because otherwise that’s way too time intensive for every person who has a podcast in the world.   I recorded my parents this week, so this week’s episode is full of laughter and people talking over top of each other. Classic Budzek.   I’m enjoying having a podcast so far, but I feel like it could very easily be about the same thing every week — Survivor, Trump, etc. So I’ll have to find something else to talk about. It’s shocking that I made it two WHOLE episodes without talking about The West Wing , so that will have to be rectified. I blame Trump — since he won the election, thinking about Bartlet makes me sad.   Anyway, things are crazy at work right now — busy, not crazy. Crazy busy, I guess. And I started to learn to bake!!! So that’s really exciting for me. So far I’ve made a chocolate cake and icing, and...

I have a new podcast called My Opinion Matters and I am super excited to share it. I have been recording the second episode this week, hoping to post it soon to my RSS feed and iTunes. I have also submitted it to Google Play, so that link will be coming soon as well. You can subscribe above at the top or at the right of this page. Thanks so much!

Once in awhile, you get to read a piece of literature that makes you stop and think about the world in a completely different way. Maybe it was the story of a culture you didn’t know about before, or a thriller with a character you just can’t forget, or a fantasy/sci-fi novel that transported you into a different world. this cover has multiple meanings and they are all Jason. Maybe you read Dark Matter by Blake Crouch. Of course, the cover art is amazing, and really makes you want to pick it up. Whatever, people judge by the cover — don’t care if you’re supposed to or not — we do. Reading the dust jacket, it seems like an okay story that might be interesting. The dust jacket doesn’t even begin to cover it. Ha, cover it. I crack myself up. At the beginning, it seems as though you’re really a thriller that will undoubtedly turn into something ridiculous or unbelievable. However, as the story begins to unfold and you actually find yourself interested in physics concepts you n...

Written by Clare Mackintosh,  I See You  starts like every other psychological thriller I’ve read lately. Vague character details? Check. Swapping narrators? Check. Tone changes in italics? Check. So I figured it would be similar in tone and in narrative. I was still looking forward to the read, but didn’t expect much. Not my copy. Found this picture on google. Same cover art, though. I was wrong. The writing and character development was so intensely realistic and I actually had a nightmare about it last night, and I had only read the first fourth of the book. I know that sounds bad, but it’s actually a really good sign that the book is engaging and feels like real life. I don’t live in London, so other than some of the wording and processes that don’t necessarily make sense to a Midwestern girl from Ohio, I felt like I could be the main character. The dueling narrators didn’t bother me like it has before — I think because they were telling two distinct but c...

Dressing yourself is wicked difficult. I know that sounds juvenile, but deciding what to wear every day is the worst. Boys have it easier, and so does everyone who wears a uniform to work. I recognize that is not a popular opinion, but I miss wearing a uniform — decisions are already made for you. It’s because of this difficulty that most of my closet is full of black and grey. Dr. Malcolm from Jurassic Park (the book, not the movie), was right when he said,  “In any case, I wear only two colors, black and gray…These colors are appropriate for any occasion…I believe my life has value, and I don’t want to waste it thinking about clothing. I don’t want to think about what I will wear in the morning. Truly, can you imagine anything more boring than fashion? Professional sports, perhaps. Grown men swatting little balls, while the rest of the world pays money to applaud. But, on the whole, I find fashion even more tedious than sports.” However, I recognize that in the corporat...