NTMP #50: King's Hawaiian Rolls Bed

Bespoke bum cushion

New-to-me Phrases, January 22, 2023

Exoplanets * The Gyro’s Journey * fuck your cheese ripley * Free beans * Goth pigeon * Bespoke cock cushion * Loveland frog * romo * Corn bed * Penis map

Photo by Pete Nuij on Unsplash

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The Phrases, With Context

This week we have a delicious expedition, a cheese hater, more about Prince Harry’s pork sword than I think anyone ever cared to know, and the highest and best use of a frog suit.

Let’s get to it!

1. Exoplanets

The James Webb-Was-a-Reprehensible-Homophobe Space Telescope discovered a bonus planet, memorably dubbed LHS 475b.

I’d not heard the term exoplanet before, but as the prefix implies, it’s a planet outside our solar system. I rather prefer bonus planet.

2. The Gyro’s Journey

This was me mishearing my friend Kelly, who is taking a writing class exploring the hero’s journey.

If there isn’t a Greek restaurant named The Gyros Journey, I’m gonna be really mad.

Edited to add: There is one! In Brooklyn! Because of course there is!

Also, two dudes in Colorado wrote a book called The Gyros Journey about finding affordable ethnic eateries along the Front Range. A real challenge, because Northern Colorado is really super terrifyingly white—at least it was when I lived there in 2016.

3. fuck your cheese ripley

Longtime readers know that I do what I want here, meaning that often “New-to-me Phrases” are single words and, less often and when warranted, complete sentences.

The other night I was on a Zoom call listening to my friend give a talk about videography in marketing. During the intros, one of the participants appeared to have sent a chat DM to the entire group, saying the person talking was “boring” and should “shut the fuck up” “get the fuck off the stage.” 👀 It quickly became clear that we had a Zoom bomber in the chat.

While another person named Ripley did their intro, they mentioned offhand that they make cheese, which got a “fuck your cheese ripley” response in the chat. (Zoom bombers are not known for their capitalization and punctuation skills.)

I call this making the best of a bad situation, because fuck Zoom bombers.

Also, this phrase is now the title of my hag friends’ group chat.

If you work in tech or marketing, check out the bimonthly Fort Collins Internet Pros (FCIP) gatherings. They’re good people who host interesting speakers—they’re always looking for people to give presentations, too. They meet on Zoom so you don’t have to be local, and you might pick up a hilarious new phrase while you’re there.

4. Free beans

You just have to trust me on this one. Watch the whole thing. Don’t come back until you’re done. I MEAN IT. Tappy-tappy:

sunday.nobody.art

A post shared by Sunday Nobody (@sunday.nobody.art)

Did you watch? OK, you may proceed.

By the way, this is the same artist who made the 3,000-pound sarcophagus for a bag of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, as mentioned in a previous edition of NTMP.

5. Goth pigeon

When I read this, I felt like this was a phrase that’s already out there that I must have encountered before. But when I googled it, nothing came up.

Anyway, this was how a tattoo artist I worked with recently captioned a crow tattoo:

midwestlove

A post shared by Marky (@midwestlove)

6. Bespoke cock cushion

My friend Sarah sent me this one from Prince Harry’s memoir, which I will never read because I’m not into the royals. No judgment to those of you who are; it’s just not my thing. Thank you for your service, Sarah; you’re doing important work excavating phrases I wouldn’t otherwise find.

I guess Harry got frostbite on his todger while on an expedition to the North Pole, so when he was prepping to visit the South Pole, a “very close mate” hired a seamstress to make him a bespoke cock cushion made from fleece. Now that’s a good mate.

7. Loveland frog

The Depths of Wikipedia IG account is a real gem that shares marvelously random screenshots from Wikipedia. For example, this post of proposed Wikipedia logos.

This week, they shared this one with the caption “The Ohio bigfoot.”

depthsofwikipedia

A post shared by Wikipedia is weird! (@depthsofwikipedia)

Editors have since taken down the awesome story in the second frame, claiming it wasn’t verifiable, but it’s a plausibly great story so here you go:

Bonus: When you search Wikipedia for Loveland frog, the subheading is “Legendary creature.”

8. romo

A succinctly brilliant response to FOMO (fear of missing out), this is romo:

I’m into it.

Look at those views! Apparently this joke struck a chord.

Did you know someone published a paper in a scientific journal about the effects of FOMO on mental health? Now you do.

9. Corn bed

My friend Abby dropped this one into our hag group chat with the words CORN BED! CORN BED! so you know I had to click it. In a fit of Peak White Nonsense, in 2010 a dude built a bed frame, filled it with dry corn kernels and slept on it, dubbing it “A rejuvenating full-body experience.” Then I guess he moved to France (good call) and sold the corn before he left. Gross!

10. Penis map

I found this phrase while writing about Prince Harry’s nest egg and I loved it so much I had to include it on its own. While Googling “British slang for penis” (as one does), I came across this article with the headline:

Penis map shows different words for ‘willy’ around UK

Alas, I could not find any images of the now-defunct website with said penis map. It appears to have been built using Flash back in 2010, so the Wayback Machine was no help. If anyone finds an image of the map, please let me know (hit reply to this email or leave a comment if you’re reading on the web).

However, there is an ancient Twitter account that stopped posting in 2010 with some fun noms de peen listed. Sadly, all tweets link back to the defunct map.

What are we going to reference when Twitter finally eats it under Musk’s spiteful ineptitude? Sigh. His smarmy mug belongs on a penis map.

ANYWAY, that’s it for this week. Thanks for reading and remember to stay curious and remain furious.