Today kicks off a short three-day story. With all the excitement going on from Sunday, it seemed like a good idea to just hold off a day or two.

Which is something I’ve thought about for a while… When I do strips that are linked, does it hurt to run the strips every other day? That extra day might be just enough to forget about what happened before. So this seems like a good opportunity to see what happens when I run a week’s worth of strips on three consecutive days.

Depending how this plays out, I may do variations on this. I want to stay with a 3x a week schedule, but maybe those three days don’t have to be Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

I did that mostly ’cause I knew it’d get a laugh from Alan (right, Big Al?) but also because his comments reminded me of back when I was in college (Ball State University for those of you who are abnormally curious) and took an Introduction to Philosophy class.

For years I thought I’d gotten a “C” in that class. But recently, I had to get my transcripts for a new job and discovered I’d actually gotten a “B”. I have no idea why I had the faulty memory (I’m sure there’s some philosophical reason but I don’t know what it is, which is probably why I didn’t get an “A”).

The class instructor was a very nice lady, and I ended up lending her a tape I had of Steve Martin’s “Death Of Socrates” skit from his “Comedy Is Not Pretty” tv special. I was curious about what her reaction might be.

I’ve long since lost that tape, but here’s a version that I found on YouTube. A couple of disclaimers, however: For some reason that I don’t understand, this clip has a laugh track. I’m fairly certain that the original didn’t. Also, the very end is cut off. But even with those caveats, I think it holds up:

If you haven’t seen it before, the part that was cut out at the end was the revelation of Socrates’ final words to Plato (“Come mister tally man / tally me bananas / daylight come and me wanna go home”).

When the instructor returned the tape to me, she said she liked it and commented that it was funny while reflecting a little bit of the reality of Socrates (though I doubt that he ever actually ordered Chinese food).

That Intro to Philosophy class did give me an important insight, though probably not one the instructor intended. On the first day of the class, she stood in front of us and declared that, “Philosophy is the attempt to answer, or at least examine, questions that cannot be answered using standard empirical means.”

The first thought that went through my head was: “Well, that leaves guessing.”

And that has stayed with me ever since.

In which the “noose” tightens.

*  *  *

This is episode #200 of “Ryan’s Dad.”  I probably should have done a special strip for today, but I’d planned to wrap up the Miss Worl storyline before the end of May and didn’t want to interrupt that (and this storyline does come to a definitive conclusion).

I don’t have a big webcomic following, but I have a few readers and I want to thank you for sticking with me for the first 200 strips.  When I started, I had no assurance that I’d reach 100.  When I reached 100, 200 looked like it’d be impossible.

And now I have no clue over whether I can reach 300.  But at least this time, it seems like a possibility.  You know what?  It really is just a matter of putting one foot in front of the other (figuratively speaking, of course. I don’t draw with my feet.)

Thanks for joining me for 200!

In which our hero decides it’s better to arrest people for smoking.

New readers may not know who “Bomb” is, so this seems a good time to reintroduce her.  Basically, she’s an eight year old girl who has a bad habit with dropping f-bombs. (I know… it makes me sigh heavily too, but that’s the way the kids talk nowadays, right?)

In any event, today’s strip sets off a story that will go, on and off, until June.  Or, as Ryan knows it, the end of the school year.

You are reading the last “snowman” strip of the season.

Is that sarcastic applause I hear?

May a diseased yeti yak upon your snow shoes.