For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for June 09, 2010

Will someone please tell me how you do formatting in these posts, such as bold, italics, etc.? Is there a formatting tool bar somewhere that I need to download? Thanks for any help I may receive.

@sierramadre, if you go here, The Old Wolf created a goComics style guide. The link to his style guide is posted most days in the comments at Pibgorn.

Hope that helps! :-)

She says she chooses to do these domestic chores, yet bitterly complains while doing them.

Ted, shut up, will ya?!

Honestly, he hasn’t met one of those yet. If he had, he’d have the good sense to apologize profusely then crawl under the table before she gets out the meat cleaver.

I’ve never had the urge to slap a cartoon character so much as I do right now…. It’s an odd feeling. Someone needs to put Ted in his place. Why does John hang out with this idiot?

and why is john just sitting there with that STUPID expression on his face ?

better back up your woman or you’ll be sleeping by yourself.

By “one of those”, Ted, do you mean an intelligent, educated, committed woman who is caring for a home and family and raising the next generation?

Ted deserves to live in a cave (a real one) and see how he functions without momma…

Rerunning this stuff a generation down the road, as if these were today’s adults of that age, has its pitfalls. There are fewer dinosaurs like Ted around these days, and they’ve learned to keep their mouths shut in civilized company. John comes off as exceptionally more vapid in the repeat, to the point where he’s more irritating than funny.

http://home.comcast.net/~ccdesan/Pibgorn/StyleGuide.html#Image Paste this link into your browser and it should bring you to the site that explains all the fancy stuff.

I don’t like doing laundry, but I’d rather do it than yardwork. Does that mean I’ve been put on this earth to serve men?

I would so throw this jacka$$ out.

fear-ciuil and JDG: The link doesn’t work…

Being an ex-Marine, I leave nothing to clean. Meal preparation is a joy to be shared. Oh, kids! You were greedy enough to help overpopulate the world for your own selfish emotional needs. Hope they can feed themselves 50 years from now.I would recommend immediate sterilization before the taxpayer has to support another in schools, health costs, and riot police by future food banks. In nature, animals are intelligent enough to stop reproducing during tough times. Human????

If I have offended someone, good.

It wouldn’t be a normal day if you hadn’t found a way to offend someone Lewreader…

http://shockdom.com/open/carl/

I never held back, and I have the respect of my male friends and companions to show for it.

I’ve been known to express my opinion and I don’t give a hoot what protocol “should” be. If someone that boorish and rude is in my house, he’ll get an earful and won’t be back.

Hubby backs me up too

Howtheduck–I adhere more to the “don’t disrespect me in my home” than the “guests are always right” mindset. Of course, I probably would have went for the passive-aggressive approach of waiting until he leaves, then informing my guy that his sexist buddy is not welcome in our home anymore. Then I would feel fine about being cold and ungracious from the get-go the next time he came over. I put up with enough garbage at work, where I can’t do anything about it because I need my job. I’m not about to be treated poorly in my own home. If you can’t deal with that, don’t come over.

I cook and clean because I like to eat at dinner time and I like to live in a cleaned up space. If you live with me…lucky you!

Mrs. Goaler is of the opinion that women and men were put on this Earth to help (or serve, if you prefer) each other! While I did take several pucks to the mask “back in the day”, I sure ain’t stupid enough to disagree with that!

Dunno about anybody else, but my wife and I are a team… ;-)

Lewreader said, about 2 hours ago

Being an ex-Marine,

Don’t you mean “Former” Marine? I thought the only ex Marine was Lee Harvey Oswald. Semper Fi.

Lewreader: I am not offended, just bewildered (and I am not being sarcastic). Were you replying to a post that I missed or something??

HowtheDuck: With regard to item c: If I knew Ted was coming over, I would lock my kids in another room with some macaroni and cheese or send them to a neighbor’s until he left. His rudeness and boorishness might be contagious!

Guess I’m on early (for me) today, as had to flag fooweio three times and the ads were posted only 18 minutes before 9:49 Central time. I usually miss the ads because you nice folks have gotten rid of them by the time I get to the computer.

Ted needs his you know what kicked!!!

Aw, all y’all need to chill out. What did Ted say?

“A man needs pampering once in a while….and there’s nothing like a woman to give it to him.”

So,…Which part was so wrong?

1) Men (or for that matter, women) DON’T need pampering once in a while? (If you deny it, you are an idiot or a liar.)

2) Or, are you SERIOUSLY ARGUING that a man can pamper other men just as well as a woman can pamper a man? (Yuccchhh! … and apart from the yucchh factor, to deny the obvious truth of what Ted said, is to demean women – not the opposite.)

I don’t see Ted’s comments as IN ANY WAY implying that women are “only” good for cooking (or pampering). He is expressing his appreciation for the good life that John enjoys, married to a good woman who (in addition to everything else she does – this goes without saying) cooks him good meals and is a devoted mate, making his life more comfortable. Just as, hopefully, John does things to improve Elly’s quality of life.

Would you be happier if Ted had instead said, “You should be jealous of me because, as a bachelor, I eat whatever I want, whenever and wherever I want, instead of what some woman feels like cooking”? He may actually feel that way, but he’s trying to be nice to his married friends.

And when Elly screams at her GUEST, Ted, for complimenting John (really, Ted was attempting, however clumsily, to compliment Elly) about the joys of married life, the real jerk in this arc is Elly.

And in context of the rude and unjustified way that SHE behaved, “one of those” needs only mean “one of those over-sensitive maniacs who screams at a dinner guest for no good reason (or, because he is awkward at giving compliments).”

Well, excuse all the hell out of Ted! He is right, and everyone flying off the handle about him is wrong.

Based, at least, on what’s been said SO FAR. But obviously, Lynn wants certain people to hate the guy, so I don’t doubt that he will dig himself a deeper hole. Meanwhile, I think that Elly’s outburst is NO WAY justified.

Ted isn’t a guest, he’s a friend. And friends are allowed to express themselves freely. On both sides of that coin.

kerumbo”

Please pay more attention to the way in which Ted boy executes his comment. (in yesterday’s strip)

He leans back with an “s” eating grin on his face that implies nothing but his endless assumption of superiority and his insufferable expectation of privilege.

There is nothing in that expression that implies a heart felt compliment.

Lynn is showing us what a disgusting moron he is. Why shouldn’t we despise him and his stupid behavior?

AND to repeat my post from yesterday.

Ted’s self satisfied grin says otherwise. He’s full of himself and full of (as my old incompetent childhood dentists liked to say) baloney. (euphemism for that which will not pass the censor.)

How long will it take John to give up on this idiot?

On another note entirely.

I started reading FBOFW past the midway point of it’s first run. By then John and Elly were very likable and that is how I have thought of them and how I think of them even now.

When I read negative posts on their behavior my tendency is defend them to the point of denying that they are doing ANYTHING wrong. Now that I look back I see that a lot of stuff that they have done isn’t all that great. I AM disappointed much of the time.

For instance, in today’s strip John has no business commiserating with Ted (splayed hands in third panel) over Elly’s justifiable rant. (Lots of rants are justifiable.)

I want to see better behavior from John and Elly, and too often I don’t. I DO see that too many post are irresponsible in the way they challenge John’s and Elly’s mistakes.

Derogatory and disparaging remarks against them are not justified.

I know it’s hard to be both challenging AND helpful and I’d like to see more posts that succeed at this.

I like the Pattersons and I very much enjoy the strip this second time around.

I don’t really have time to get into the middle of this, but I agree with most of the comments so far (except of course kerumbo, who must be “one of those” who love to excuse bad behavior and come up with convoluted reasons on why the rude one is right. So I will just ignore his (or her) comments…) The part that stuck out to me was what myming already said… why doesn’t John either stand up for his wife, or at the least change the subject? Elly’s outburst would have been avoided if John had said something first.

poohbear8192, you are wrong of course. Of course Ted has a satisfied grin on his face, he has just finished a delicious (in his opinion) meal. He may be ham handed in his attempt to compliment elly, but she is the one who chooses to take as an insult. With her anger toward her lot in life she finds the least little thing on which to vent herself. It is your opinion that Ted is at fault, it is my opinion that he is not. Therein lies the crux of the problem, everyone reads into the strip their own bias and forms an opinion from that. Ted may not be well versed in the social graces, but that hardly excuses elly’s reaction.

There’s nothing subservient about being kind and treating your spouse with respect and yes maybe even pampering a little. Equality is kind of silly when comparing to men and women, like it or not, women are good at stuff men couldn’t even begin to do, and vise versa. Embrace the differences, it makes life fun! Seriously, I really doubt many women in America have experienced true subservience, generally speaking as a woman, I find my husband and most men to be readily kind and helpful, as long as I’m being NICE!! Elly is setting herself up for failure by demanding something unrealistic, sorry for her.

If I were Ted, I think I’d leave before I ate dinner. You never know what might end up in your food after comments like he has made.

wndrwrthg

Thank goodness we live in a country where we can express any (nearly) opinion we want.

For some reason, no one has resorted to incitement to riot yet.

And hopefully, proud of it.

He must, of course, mean a feminazi.

Back in the time period of this original comic, all women who spoke up when they felt insulted were considered beeches. It’s changed a little, but not enough.

That said, I’m not so sure I would let him have it during dinner, but he would never come for dinner again.

fear-ciuil and JDG – Thank you for your help. I was able to access the site.

fear-ciuil and JDG: My computer must’ve been temperamental because the link worked this morning, thank you! :D

@Wndrwrthg

Exactly! She is neither hardworking nor pleasant to be around.

She is just annoying

Much like this strip