Now I'm an Amputee, Goddamn You

Ten pop culture bonus points to the first person to name the artist, song title, album title, and date of release (within five years, of course) of the work referenced in the title of this post. Obscure? Maybe. But you can do it; I believe in you. It's like a listening quiz without the listening... and without the bizarre tendon stretching/carpet gazing of the St. Olaf College musicology faculty. This one's just plain me, rocking you like a mountain.

And while we're talking about music, let's have a moment to discuss something that came up on my morning weight-lift/run today. In Dr. Dre's "What's the Difference" on 2001 -- which if you don't own, you should, because it's amazing -- Xzibit advises us of the following: "until my death, I'm Bangladesh." What do you suppose this means? Has Xzibit followed in the footsteps of many of our East Coast friends and taken alternate names, not unlike Wu-Tang's Old Dirty Bastard (may he rest in peace) taking Osiris and Dirt McGirt? Is he advising us of his ancestry? I'll go out on a limb and say that X-to-the-Z doesn't look Bangladeshi, but then I'm not sure I know what Bangladeshis might look like.

I'm intimately familiar with the futility of trying to piece together meaning from hip-hop lyrics; anything that seems eccentric or arcane is usually just in there because it rhymes. Take, for example, one of my favorite tracks from Outkast's Stankonia, "We Luv Deez Hoez." Backbone, one of the featured artists, manages to create a causal link between apparel and the drinking of alcohol with this toss-off: "Sweatsuit velour/so I ordered Kahlua." For people like me who love words and really love word silliness, it doesn't get any better than that. So just think about it.

Also, think about how perfect the weather is this morning and for God's sake, get outside to enjoy it. And if you can't do that, open your damned window. Minnesota only gets a handful of days like this in a year, and the way things are going, I'm sure it will shortly be monsooning here again. Do it... do it.

EDIT: Never mind. This weather sucks. More wind than a flatulent old man, the sun wiped out, and teensie-weensie drops of rain falling. At least I was right about the impending monsoon... I just thought we'd get a respite that lasted less than four hours.