Joss Whedon

Part wish list, part to-do list, part flight of fancy...but 100 percent nerd.

50. Have a fashionista compliment you on your outfit.

49. Get married on a replica of the starship Enterprise at the "Star Trek: Experience" in Las Vegas.

48. Be bold and take your action figures out of the box, value be damned!

47. Visit the grave of pioneering comic book artist Jack Kirby.

46. Live James Joyces’ Ulysses by attending the Bloomsday Festival in Dublin. (Reading Ulysses first — or at least buying the Cliff’s Notes — might be good here, too.)

45. See all of Shakespeares’ histories performed. Yes, even the crap ones. (Helloooooo, King John!)

44. Visit the yet-to-be-made Harry Potter theme park.

43. Visit the yet-to-be-made Harry Potter theme park and try not to cry tears of girly joy.

42. Defeat King Koopa. Just once, damn it!

41. Have martinis and make witty comments at the Algonquin Hotel in New York, preferably at a round table.

40. See at least one game at all existing Major League Baseball ballparks.

39. Make a tour of Raymond Chandler’s Los Angeles. After that, make a tour of The Big Lebowski’s Los Angeles.

38. Draw a map of a nonexistent or fictional place.

37. Visit DC Comics’ office.

36. Check out the computer labs at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, future birthplace of HAL-9000.

35. Go to the Superman Festival in Metropolis, IL.

34. Have dinner with Adam West (Batman), Burt Ward (Robin) and Linda Carter (Wonder Woman). Denigrate Gil Gerard.

33. Visit the respective castles that inspired Frankenstein and Dracula.

32. Match or out-do Eugene Andreev’s record-setting freefall from an altitude of 83,523 ft (25,457 m).

31. Build your own lightsaber.

30. Visit Riverside, Iowa, future birthplace of Captain James T. Kirk.

29. Watch the sunset from inside the "Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure" dinosaur.

28. Convince Harold Bloom that Tolkien’s Ring trilogy belongs in the canon just as much as that stuffy old Faerie Queene. Plus, hello, hobbits!

27. Go to an underground sing-along screening of the Buffy Musical. (When Buffy is outlawed, only outlaws will sing-along to Buffy.)

26. See the butter cow at the Iowa State Fair.

25. Spend an entire weekend watching Miyazaki films. Subsequently achieve outstanding bliss.

24. Witness a live space shuttle launch. Extra points if you’re piloting it.

23. Create an elaborate, unnecessarily detailed wiki about a fictional universe or series of stories.

22. Smuggle your soul into a futuristic robot. One thousand years from now, mock the suckers who fell for cryogenics.

21. Kill a zombie.

20. Kick Eric Clapton’s ass in "Guitar Hero."

19. Become an editor and get paid to correct other people’s grammar errors.

18. Make a pilgrimage to the Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum in Key West, Florida, and pet his six-toed cats.

17. Learn advanced Klingon.

16. "Accidentally" get locked in a bookstore for seven or eight days.

15. Watch 24 hours of "24" without falling asleep or hallucinating about Tony’s soul patch. Seriously. It can’t be done.

14. Understand a Tom Stoppard play on the first viewing.

13. Visit the International Space Station and go for a spacewalk.

12. Join the 501st Stormtrooper Brigade.

11. Memorize enough digits of pi to be impressive but not weird.

10. Be part of the first Wii Sport Olympic team. Be satisfied in the knowledge that your groin pulls will only ever be virtual.

9. Make out with Joss Whedon or J.K. Rowling. Extra points if you achieve a two-fer.

8. Gain at least one bionic limb or superpower

7. Feel again like you felt the first time you saw "Star Wars."

6. Correct Alex Trebek on the pronunciation of something French. Consequently hold him when he cries.

5. Figure out what the hell "Lost" is about. [This item also works for "The Prisoner," "Twin Peaks," "Cloverfield," and the popularity of Oprah.]

4. Solve a New York Times crossword puzzle...with your eyes closed. Just kidding. Doing one in pen with no mistakes in under 10 minutes is good, too.

3. Defeat those brainiac kids in the Scripps Spelling Bee Contest.

2. Get something published in The New Yorker. Have David Remnick call and ask where you’ve been all his life.

1. Live to see the day when smart and witty wins out over hot and shallow every single day of the week.