2. Get to the bottom of why Shania Twain and Faith Hill all but disappeared, leaving crossover country-pop so vulnerable to complete domination by Taylor Swift
3. Check out Downton Abbey and Homeland -- I feel so out of the loop.
4. Watch more than one episode of The Good Wife and maybe figure out why the lovely Julianna Margulies never became a bigger movie star
5. Get into the Bluths on Arrested Development (in time for the Netflix debut of the fourth season in May?) and the Pritchett and Dunphy clans (minus Ty Burrell and Julie Bowen, who totally deserve their Emmys) on Modern Family
6. Learn to love Sofía Vergara, too (Shakira remains my favorite Colombian star and the one most likely to bring out my inner hetero.)
7. Find out who the hell Ted settles down with (and if it's not Robin, that's exactly what he'll be doing -- settling) on How I Met Your Mother (Speaking of HIMYM, I need to solve an even more pressing mystery: How does Neil Patrick Harris play womanizer Barney Stinson so convincingly, minus any glaringly cliched hetero mannerisms, that while watching, I totally forget that Harris is gay?)
8. Embark on two crucial Hollywood marathons: watch all 10 movies for which Bette Davis was nominated for the Best Actress Oscar (I've only seen half of them: Jezebel, The Letter, Now, Voyager, All About Eve, and What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?) and every Alfred Hitchcock film from his classic period (1940's Rebecca to 1963's The Birds)
9. See what the Academy sees in Amy Adams
10. See more of one-time Kevin Costner costars Rene Russo and Joan Allen, a three-time Oscar nominee -- The Upside of Anger deserved a lot more love than it got (none) from the Academy.
11. Figure out why the names Glenn Close, Sigourney Weaver and Michelle Pfeiffer still aren't preceded by "Academy Award winner" -- or witness that changing at last
12. Solve the mysteries of the Academy's overlooked men -- What does it have against Donald Sutherland, Richard Gere, Dennis Quaid and Ewan McGregor? Still zero Oscar nominations among them!
13. Listen to all the classic '70s albums of the Isley Brothers and then write a blog post about them -- As self-contained '70s R&B acts that wrote, played and produced their own material while incorporating rock & roll into a pioneering and frequently sampled-by-rappers mix go, the five Isley siblings and their brother-in-law Chris Jasper totally deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as Stevie Wonder.
14. Keep watching Girls until it finally gets to Shoshanna Shapiro's back story -- Maybe it's the way she's performed by Zosia Mamet (whom I loved as Mia Wasikowska's best friend in The Kids Are All Right), all endearing naivete with a touch of knowing, but I find Shoshanna, with her stream-of-consciousness thought process, to be the most intriguing and likable girl on Girls.
15. Wish the original Sugababes line-up back together, and then watch them, Robbie Williams, Paul Weller and a reunited-too Suede finally make it big in the USA.
16. See live performances and buy new recorded material by a reunited ABBA, The Smiths, Talking Heads and R.E.M. + original drummer Bill Berry
17. Be there when Duffy survives the sophomore flop that was 2010's Endlessly and gets a second shot at major pop success, and while I'm at it, witness a few more comebacks post-David Bowie's: Pat Benatar's? Everything But the Girl's? Terence Trent D'Arby's? (He was Bruno Mars when Bruno Mars was still a toddler!)
18. Sit through at least one James Bond film in its entirety -- Skyfall?
19. Become a devotee of at least one big Hollywood franchise -- I'm already a huge Jennifer Lawrence fan, so maybe The Hunger Games it is?
20. Now that Donna Summer is posthumously in, watch Linda Ronstadt, Dionne Warwick, Loretta Lynn and Dolly Parton get into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame while they're still around to sing at their induction ceremonies.
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