The results are in! (Spoiler: the results are bad.)

Here on Day 3 of the 500 Word Challenge, I best tidy up some loose ends that have been wantonly dangling until now. As with 2012, in 2013 I signed up for the FiftyFifty.me challenge of reading 50 books and watching 50 movies during the year, though I hedged on watching 50 movies (if you want to read about it, here's a link that will make you circle the Internet to travel several inches down this page).

Back in 2012 I read thirty-four books and watched twenty-four movies. In 2013? Thirty-five books and twelve movies. Also, I've read deep enough into two additional quite thick books that could compassionately nudge the total up to 37, so let's split the difference and call it 36 books, 12 movies.

We could ramble on fruitlessly--again--about my miserable, abject, total failure to hit 50 units in either category, but rather, given we have four whole data points, let's submit these figures to deep statistical analysis. And a graph.

According thus to Science and here submitted for Peer Review, the graph indicates that in 2020 I will hit my goal of reading 50 books a year. But we mustn't celebrate yet--while we're in good shape with books, something goes horribly awry with movies.

Firstly, I will see absolutely no movies this year. Not a one. And the year after? Minus 12. In 2020, the year when I hit my stride in books? Minus 72.

Minus 72 movies? I'm not sure what it means to consume minus 72 movies, but I'm fairly certain some wild speculation is in order. We must go where the data leads.

I submit the following hypothetical explanations for negative movie consumption:

--I could begin rapidly forgetting movies I have already seen. My memory isn't what it used to be, but this hypothesis seems rather unlikely. I'll never forget that classic film where the guy goes to that place with the lady and something bad happens with the thingy. You know. That one.

--I could become a director and craft movies so impossibly bad as to damage the concept of film itself. I must confess; this is something of a dream of mine. Consider adding this hypothesis to your fantasy team.

--Another me in another dimension of the "multiverse" could consume irresponsibly vast volumes of movies, forcing my negative movie consumption to maintain the balance of existence. This is about as likely as anything else coming out of the multiverse, and actually puts me in the running to be Doctor Who in six years. I'm not British, but I am ginger. Even odds, then.

There is nothing in the graph to contra-indicate the possibility of ALL THREE of these possibilities occurring simultaneously, meaning I'll be a Doctor Who traveling the multiverse directing awful movies while forgetting everything he knows about film. If the poignant resonance of that doesn't make you excited about the future, I don't know what will.