same here

Ladies and Gentlemen, Question 2¹



The biggest-deal event on MTV every year is their Video Music Awards, and the biggest-deal award is that for Video of the Year. Since its inception in 1984 it's been awarded 33 times, and in that time only three artists have won the award twice (and no one has won it more times than that).

Which of the following artists, each of whom goes by a one-word name (but is not Kei$ha), has NOT won the MTV Video of the Year award twice?

A. Adele

aaronk56
Aaronk56's Son
ArcticKnight
D1iabol1cal
dc-ohio
derwipok
eyebooger
fightnwin
fnord_too
Gamer Dude
ibavly
Jeremy517
kcaw
King_of_NYC
KrazyKris
master3004
NeverObliviate
Priptonite
pwnsall
rtd353
soma84
TheGunslinger
TheJubilantMale
Thingyman
True North
vruuuuk
Weatherguy
wesrwood

B. Beyoncé

lenC
pmarrsouth

C. Eminem

425kid
Brian O'Nolan
TehVader

D. Rihanna

_dave_
accobra_kid
chuckleslovakian
rtspurs
xander biscuits

Time to launch into a more difficult question. Let's see where we land.²

Rihanna (D) has indeed won the award twice, for Umbrella and We Found Love. I think these are the videos in question (though it's sometimes hard to tell whether the videos that wind up posted publicly are the real deal, I believe I've found all of the actually relevant ones for this question):






__________

Beyoncé (B) has crushed the MTV video awards lately, and her dominance has included two Video of the Year awards — the first for the video of Single Ladies, a song that I believe was aired approximately every eight minutes on every pop station in the country in 2008 (she got the award for it in 2009):



But the dominance wasn't clear until the 2016 awards, when her Lemonade album and its anthem for the Black Lives Matter movement, Formation (as well as another song, Hold Up) garnered her a record eight awards. Check it out — this ain't no Pepsi ad:



___________

With each of those two pop queens having picked up a pair of Video of the Year awards, who's left? Oh yeah, yet another female pop icon, and a white rapper. Not exactly a fair fight, huh?

Nope, not really... because while Beyoncé may be dominating the video scene of late, Eminem (C) (aka Marshall Mathers) has ruled it like no one else. Among his many MTV award nominations are six for the Video of the Year award, more than anyone else has gotten. Wait a minute, who is this guy? What did he do? Oh, nothing much, except sell more music in the US during the 2000s than any other artist, period.

He's won the Video of the Year award twice, for The Real Slim Shady:



... and Without Me:



____________

Let's not feel sorry for Adele (A): She's sold more than 100 million records, shows up on just about everybody's list of most influential musicians and some lists of most influential person, has a bank account in nine figures, and is adored by millions. Along the way she's won quite a few MTV awards and has been nominated for Video of the Year twice, but has never won the award. She therefore does win this question, as does everyone else who chose her.


¹ The first words spoken on MTV were "Ladies and gentlemen, rock and roll."
² Before those first words, MTV showed a clip of a space shuttle launch and then of an astronaut planting a flag (with the MTV logo, natch) on the moon.

Rheingold	(correct)	Walküre	(correct)	Siegfried	(correct)	Götterdämmerung	(correct)
_dave_	1	FCBLComish	0	27ninjabunnies	1	425kid	1
aaronk56	2	fightnwin	2	Aaronk56's Son	2	Brian O'Nolan	1
accobra_kid	1	fnord_too	2	chuckleslovakian	1	D1iabol1cal	2
ArcticKnight	2	ibavly	2	dc-ohio	2	derwipok	2
jedi	0	KrazyKris	2	Gamer Dude	2	eyebooger	2
master3004	2	Montecore	1	lenC	1	Jeremy517	2
Nicholasp27	1	Mor_Tilt4mePls	0	loosekanen	0	kcaw	2
Priptonite	2	NeverObliviate	2	pmarrsouth	1	King_of_NYC	2
rtspurs	1	TehVader	1	rtd353	2	lilrascal	0
toedder	1	Thingyman	2	TehBankertin	0	pwnsall	2
True North	2	vruuuuk	2	TheGunslinger	2	soma84	2
Weatherguy	2	wesrwood	2	xander biscuits	1	TheJubilantMale	2

We're working on Q3 now; not sure it'll go up tonight because we're each narced up.

whew.. I went with Adele because I figured she was the outlier in what is probably a pretty young MTV audience... tough question though....

Always thought Kayne threw a fit at these things because Beyoncé didn't win. Oh well

I had heard that We Found Love song before and kind of liked it. I apparently didn't realize that was Rihanna. I was sure Umbrella was video of the year, but didn't know what second song she had. Shrug.

Yup. And I knew that Macklemore won a Grammy over Kendrick Lamar so just kinda assumed it's one of the darker girls. (Those not well-versed(hehe) in rap music - it's like giving Best Picture to an Adam Sandler movie over Godfather).

Adele's Rolling in the Deep is like one of 10 songs I know the video to, Hello and Someone Like You were huge #1 yearly hits.

Grammy for the same thing has each at one victory.
Sorry, tam.

sorry team, I had no clue so just guessed

would like to say it was educated but it was more of a hunch

Do these "artists" create and direct their own videos?

Usually someone that focuses on video production for a living does the video and musicians focus on being musicians

Back in the day when MTV played music videos you'd even have major directors and actors directing and acting in music videos

Spike Jonze did Weapon of Choice with Christopher Walken; there are bigger names in videos but that one was memorable

I figured Adele would have the least flashy of the four when it came to music videos, and Im probably right. The award is for best video, not best song.

Question 3: Biology (or is it religion?)

Big Bird says today's question is brought to you by the letters H and M, for hydromorphone, and the number 1. I apologize in advance for any incoherence.

While I wait for certain events to come to pass I note in passing that it's Passover to some folks and that tomorrow is Easter to others. And I couldn't let Easter pass by without mention, even if it appeared for a while that some institutions would roll right past it without the usual fanfare.

Accordingly, I observe that one common physical manifestation of the holiday is the egg. Easter eggs are laid by rabbits and occasionally made of chocolate, which is embarrassing enough for the rabbit that it tries to hide them. The rabbit, or "playmate", decorates the eggs in drab, nondescript colors such as pink and yellow to provide camouflage for the eggs, and hides them in the middle of lawns.

Everyone with me?

After the eggs are found they are opened. Those eggs that, much to everyone's surprise, are composed not of chocolate but of egg, are eaten, albeit with less relish than the chocolate versions. In fact, most people don't use relish at all, instead combining the eggs with mayonnaise, mustard, and sometimes additional seasonings to make what must obviously — considering the holiday and what it's intended to commemorate — be known as deviled eggs. Which, by the way, are yummy, provided you don't employ relish in the recipe. Or at least the first two or three dozen are yummy; after that you may start to curse the bunny and go in search of "peeps", which is the springtime name given to unrecognizable blobs of whipped sugar.

To make those deviled eggs, the preparer first observes that the rabbit lays hard boiled eggs, which makes subsequent steps more convenient. He or she removes the yolk, mixes it with the mayonnaise (which, yes, is made in part of egg — think of it as recursive cooking), and then deposits the yolk mixture back onto the white of the same egg, whereupon the cook can proudly declare that, using nothing but (magically pre-cooked) eggs (and other things), (s)he has created eggs.

The contrast between egg yolk and egg white is dramatic: One part is used for meringue, the other for hollandaise and bernaise sauces, the latter of which I managed to create last night for our sous-vided fillets before hitting the bottles (of sour beer and opiates — it was a fuzzy evening).

I'm not usually calorie conscious and at the moment can't swear to any other sort of consciousness either, but some people do worry about such things and the dichotomous nature of eggs makes me wonder about something. Something that I think I'll make into your question:

What is the approximate breakdown of calories in an egg? (chicken egg or Easter Bunny egg, take your pick)

A. 75% white, 25% yolk
B. 60% white, 40% yolk
C. 40% white, 60% yolk
D. 25% white, 75% yolk


Twenty-four hours or until I wake up, whichever is longer, to answer. Please don't cheat, though research consisting of nothing but eating is fine with me.

Enjoy your 24 hour+ nap

Question 3: Biology (or is it religion?)

I emerge from my opiated doze to bring you the answer to an age old question. No, not that age old question, the other one:

What is the approximate breakdown of calories in an egg? (chicken egg or Easter Bunny egg, take your pick)

A. 75% white, 25% yolk

Thingyman
wesrwood

B. 60% white, 40% yolk

fightnwin

C. 40% white, 60% yolk

derwipok
fnord_too
Gamer Dude
Priptonite
Weatherguy

D. 25% white, 75% yolk

aaronk56
Aaronk56's Son
ArcticKnight
D1iabol1cal
dc-ohio
eyebooger
ibavly
Jeremy517
kcaw
King_of_NYC
KrazyKris
master3004
NeverObliviate
rtd353
soma84
TheGunslinger
TheJubilantMale
True North
vruuuuk

Look inside the shell (which is, as far as mass is concerned anyway, kind of a big deal — the shell, which is almost entirely calcium carbonate, is about ten percent of the mass of a typical chicken egg) and you'll see that eggs appear to be more white than yolk. And appearances aren't deceiving: The white is about two thirds of the interior volume of an egg, the yolk about one third. (There's also a small air pocket, because the shell has thousands of microscopic pores.) But as many of you probably suspected, the yolk is fattier and therefore more caloric per unit mass and volume. How do these factors trade off against each other?

Well, before I answer let me point out that it's actually not nearly as simple as that. (Shocker, I know.) It turns out that egg yolks aren't just higher in fat, they're higher in just about everything. Even though it's half the size of the white the yolk of an egg has about as much protein as the white, more vitamins (notably A,D, E, and K, the fat-soluble ones), more carbohydrate (though neither the yolk nor the white has much of those), more of several minerals, all the caretenoids (the pigments that make it yellow, which by the way can't be synthesized by chickens or any other vertebrate, but rather are obtained from food after synthesis by plants, fungi, and bacteria; that's why the color of egg yolk depends on the diet of the animal that laid it), and definitely more fat. About the only thing the white has more of is water — it's almost 90% water, while the yolk is about 50% food-n-stuff. That's because the yolk is intended to be the primary food source for the developing bunny (if there were one there), chicken, or other animal, while the white is really just a protective fluid that happens to contain some extra protein and minerals. (The protein, principally albumin, coalesces when you cook the egg; the yolk proteins do too, but at a higher temperature, tat temperature difference giving rise to the possibility of cooking one's eggs "sunny side" and so forth.)

Thus when you hear someone order an "egg white omelette" you'll know that such a dish (while not actually an omelette imo) will be low not just in flavor and color, but in calories, as the missing yolks would have constituted about about 75% of the calories of each egg. That's answer D.

Rheingold	(correct)	Walküre	(correct)	Siegfried	(correct)	Götterdämmerung	(correct)
_dave_	1	FCBLComish	0	27ninjabunnies	1	425kid	1
aaronk56	3	fightnwin	2	Aaronk56's Son	3	Brian O'Nolan	1
accobra_kid	1	fnord_too	2	chuckleslovakian	1	D1iabol1cal	3
ArcticKnight	3	ibavly	3	dc-ohio	3	derwipok	2
jedi	0	KrazyKris	3	Gamer Dude	2	eyebooger	3
master3004	3	Montecore	1	lenC	1	Jeremy517	3
Nicholasp27	1	Mor_Tilt4mePls	0	loosekanen	0	kcaw	3
Priptonite	2	NeverObliviate	3	pmarrsouth	1	King_of_NYC	3
rtspurs	1	TehVader	1	rtd353	3	lilrascal	0
toedder	1	Thingyman	2	TehBankertin	0	pwnsall	2
True North	3	vruuuuk	3	TheGunslinger	3	soma84	3
Weatherguy	2	wesrwood	2	xander biscuits	1	TheJubilantMale	3

Götterdämmerung widens its lead, but it's still anyone's game.

Keep in mind that even those who have been knocked out as individuals will still have the opportunity to be in the next One lottery if they're on the winning team, and will get some POG $ to start the game, too.

Gött dämm it

Ya, what a great video

"Video of the year" just means "song of the year" then surely? Why would the singers get all the credit?

0% white, 100% yolo

SIEGFRIED

None of those answers was actually correct, but D was close enough

Pretty sure that's why "approximate" appeared in the question.

I've always gone by 25 kcal white / 50 kcal yolk, not the 17/55 google suggests, so I guess I learned something

Question 4: History

For most of history there has been broad consensus — which has changed over time, of course — on which weapons and other tools of war are normal and which unacceptable, bizarre, or otherwise unexpected. For the most part convention is followed (by definition) but occasionally a military leader or power will employ a weapon that is outside the bounds of what is expected; such weapons can have devastating effect not just in a strict military sense but also psychologically.

Of course you probably all realize that the particular weapon I'm thinking of, one that, when it was actually used in war, was instrumental to the victory of the power employing it but whose use came at a tremendous price, was the

In the late 200s BCE Carthaginian general Hannibal decided to to take the Punic Wars to where it would really hurt Carthage's enemy, Rome, rather than continuing to battle on the seas and in the hinterlands. And so he assembled an army near Gibraltar and marched it up the Iberian Peninsula, across the Pyrenees, across southern France, across the Alps, and finally down the Italian Peninsula all the way to and somewhat beyond the city of Rome.

That journey itself would have been no mean feat but what has caused the campaign to live on in the minds of military historians and the public was the "unthinkable" weapon that Hannibal took with him: elephants. Somehow he and his army managed to keep war elephants (elephants had been employed in war before; that wasn't what was new) well enough fed and happy or at least obedient enough that they made the journey from what is now southern Spain all the way to and across the Alps, where by most accounts they succeeded in scaring the Romans half to death and trampling some of them to finish the job.

Some of the details about the campaign are lost in the shrouds of history, including how the elephants got across the Rhône (some famous accounts and works of art have them crossing on barges, which is almost certainly wrong) and what route they took across the Alps. But perhaps surprisingly there is broad agreement among those who study such things on approximately how many elephants made the trip, plus or minus a couple.

And so we arrive at your question: How many elephants, as far and as closely as we know, did Hannibal and his army have accompanying them as they crossed the Alps in the Second Punic War?

A. 37
B. 67
C. 97
D. 137

Twenty four hours to answer. Please don't cheat.

No idea Team Walkure - had to rand.