Anatomy of a Song: "It's All About The Pentiums" Quiz

Answer: Puff Daddy

Released in 1997 on the album "No Way Out", "It's All About The Benjamins" was credited to Puff Daddy & The Family. A movie of the same title starring Ice Cube was released in 2002.

The song title refers to money. Specifically, "Benjamins" refers to U.S. $100 notes, which carry an image of Benjamin Franklin.

Interestingly, according to www.zap2it.com/movies: "Scientists concede that particles in $100 bills are present in everything in the universe. These particles are now tentatively being called "Puffitrons" - after Puff Daddy".

Answer: 100 gigabytes

"I got me a hundred gigabytes of RAM
I never feed trolls and I don't read spam"

LOL! And to think Bill Gates himself once famously proclaimed that no PC should ever need more than 64 K of memory!

Answer: Drew Carey

Whilst Drew Carey did not make it into the lyrics, he did feature heavily in the film clip. As for the rest:

"I'm down with Bill Gates, I call him "Money" for short
I phone him up at home and I make him do my tech support"

and

"Hey fella, I bet you're still livin' in your parents' cellar
Downloadin' pictures of Sarah Michelle Gellar
And postin' "Me too!" like some brain-dead AOL-er
I should do the world a favour and cap you like Old Yeller
You're just about as useless as jpegs to Hellen Keller"

Answer: 40 inches wide

"Got a flat-screen monitor forty inches wide wide
I believe that your says "Etch-A-Sketch" on the side"

This is the sort of material that makes Wierd Al stand out as a parody writer. In the first line he unashamedly brags about the size of his monitor (I am sure Sigmund Freud would read something into that) and then he immediately follows that up with a well-worded sarcastic put-down of his rival. Brilliant!

Answer: Use it as a paperweight

"Your laptop is a month old? Well that's great
If you could use a nice, heavy paperweight"

We have all got to the point where a piece of equipment was only good as a paperweight.

Answer: T1

"Installed a T1 line in my house
Always at my PC, double-clickin' on my mizouse"

Yet more bragging, this time about the size of his connection!

Answer: At least twice a day

"Upgrade my system at least twice a day
I'm strictly plug-and-play, I ain't afraid of Y2K"

With new technology making everything obsolete the moment it comes out these days, it seems like you could upgrade twice a day!

Answer: 1.5 days

"You're usin' a 286? - Don't make me laugh
Your Windows boots up in what, a day and a half?"

Not so funny - my first PC was a Pentium 133 with Windows 95A (groan) and I don't recall it taking much less than a day and a half to boot up!

Answer: Alt.total-loser

In a 32-bit world, you're a 2-bit user
You've got your own newsgroup, "alt.total-loser"

More superbly-placed sarcasm from Wierd Al here. Note that by the end of the song, he has given up boasting, and has happily resorted to putting down his nemesis full-time!

Answer: That the chip contained within may be a Dorito

"You think your Commodore 64 is really neato
What kinda chip you got in there, a Dorito?"

This is a line that makes me laugh without fail. Great stuff, this is definitely one of Wierd Al's outstanding pieces of work.

Being one half of a parody writing team myself (please refer to my profile) this is the sort of work I aspire to. Of course, it all seems so obvious AFTER you read it! That is the trick, getting there first...