I know it’s a bit late to write any kind of 2010 wrap-up, but I’ve been sick (holiday germs, how festive!) so I’m only just managing to do it now. Better late than never, right?

2010 could have been better, but at least there was fun to be had along the way. Here are a few of the things that made my year merry and bright.

TELEVISION
I continued largely shunning broadcast TV in favor of on-demand entertainment; I like the convenience and I enjoy immersing myself in a show, watching an entire season in a couple of weeks. Plus I feel safer waiting until a program has at least a couple of seasons under its belt before I tune in, because the networks have an annoying tendency to cancel anything I embrace. (Leverage is the rare exception. Well, that and Doctor Who, but that show is dead to me since David Tennant left.) 2010 was no different; I fell in love with 3 shows and 2 of them were canceled. Better Off Ted made me laugh and reminded me how absurd corporate life can be, while Stargate Universe occasionally made me cry and captured my imagination with the dark drama of their outer-space journey. While both were canceled, Mythbusters at least seems bulletproof, which is great because where else can you find humor, science, and absurdity all rolled into a single package? Luckily, Netflix has a huge selection of Mythbusters episodes available for instant viewing, so they’ll be keeping me entertained well into 2011.

BOOKS
I didn’t read many new books in 2010, but I did find a few standout titles worth sharing. Sophie Kinsella was back with a fun installment of the Shopaholic series called Mini Shopaholic, with the result that “‘Muffin! Muffin Starbucks!” and “Taxiiiiiiiiii!” are now regularly quoted in conversation. I also got my hands on the audio version of Thief of Time by Terry Pratchett, which turned out to be quite a gem; of course, it was almost guaranteed to be entertaining, given that it has Susan, Death, an Igor, the History Monks, the Horsemen of the Apocalypse and some deranged Auditors. If you’re a fan of Terry Pratchett, you should definitely check it out. On a more serious note, I found the novel Intelligence by Susan Hasler to be highly compelling; it’s a must-read if you’re at all interested in a real-life glimpse of the CIA’s counter-terrorism department.

MUSIC
For whatever reason, I only listened to a few new artists in 2010, but I’d recommend all of them. I became very interested in string music and fell in love with Zoe Keating (who writes her own compositions for cello) and the Vitamin String Quartet (which does string versions of popular songs). And I discovered the music of Leverage’s Christian Kane; I’m not a real country music fan, but his album has definite crossover appeal and I frequently found his songs looping in my head. Also, Breathe by Alexi Murdoch rivals Kane’s The House Rules for my favorite song of the year.

INTERNET
Squidoo became my new toy of 2010, and it probably deserves a post all to itself… but the abbreviated version is that it’s an article platform and I’ve enjoyed using it to write about people, places and things that I admire or enjoy. (Some of the links in this post go to articles I’ve published on Squidoo.)

So those are my entertainment recommendations for 2010 in a nutshell! Where I have a review or article about a product on Squidoo, I’ve linked to it so you can read my thoughts in more detail. I hope this post will lead you to discover some new favorite things for yourself… Happy New Year!