"By the age of six the average child will have completed the basic American education.... From television, the child will have learned how to pick a lock, commit a fairly elaborate bank holdup, prevent wetness all day long, get the laundry twice as white, and kill people with a variety of sophisticated armaments."

– Russell Baker

My last class for the semester will be on December 8, 2010, and after that, I'll have about 6.5 weeks off. We all will, in fact. Won't that be nice?

But right now, I'm trying to figure out what I'm going to do in that 6.5 weeks. Besides work, I have a growing list of TV shows, movies, books, and other things that I would like to focus on. There are several

SHOWS I HAVEN'T STARTED WATCHING YET

• The Walking Dead
• The Office (British version)
• Hot in Cleveland
• Avatar: The Last Airbender (seen a few random episodes)
• Twin Peaks

And probably more that I can't even think of right now! But even with just that list, that's going to be a total of 120 episodes (83 of them half-hours, 37 of them hourlongs, for a grand total of 78.5 hours). That might last me a week or two, tops. There are also a couple of

SHOWS/SEASONS I WANT TO RE-WATCH

• Spartacus: Blood and Sand (season 1)
• True Blood (season 1)

That's 25 episodes, 25 hours. So, a few more days of viewing.

At top (but still socially reasonable) speed, I could get through all that in less than two weeks, but I'll probably try to make it last a little longer (and I may not even watch all of them; I may opt to watch more movies and read more books, so I can save a show or two for next summer). In any case, my TV and movie viewing list will probably last at least three or four weeks this Christmas break, maybe longer, especially because I'd like to try to do some reading in between shows/episodes/daily life. I also want to get back to playing Ratchet and Clank: A Crack in Time on my PS3. I had to quit playing when I moved downtown in August, and I never found time to get back to it, with school starting back up.

What are you going to be doing with your holiday break? Any special plans or to do/to watch/to play/to read lists?

Movies, books, and possibly more to come in future posts!