Musings of a Dead Parrot

THIS WEEK'S QUESTIONS
1. The U.S., Liberia, and Myanmar are the only three nations that have not officially adopted what? my first thought is a treaty like the Kyoto Agreement or the Land Mine Ban. Something human rights oriented perhaps. But then I thought of something else - the metric system.
2. Name either one of the two former People Sexiest Men Alive who are no longer, uh, alive. Patrick Swayze is probably one of them
3. What kind of animal travels in pods? whales
4. What popular novel claims to be an abridgment of a 19th-century work by one "S. Morgenstern"? So the novel would be set in the 19th century. Is this Frankenstein? S. Morgenstern is not helping me much. Perhaps I am missing an obvious clue.
5. What was the last continent to host two consecutive Summer Olympics? Europe (1948 London and 1952 Helsinki)
6. What 1982 song hit #56 on the pop charts when the New Power Generation re-recorded it at the turn of the millennium? turn of the millennium ---> 1999 by Prince
7. What unusual distinction is shared by these world cities? Hanoi, Vietnam; Indianapolis, Indiana; Jinan, China; Khartoum, Sudan; Kimberley, South Africa; Shreveport, Louisiana; St. Petersburg, Russia; Tacoma, Washington; and Winnipeg, Manitoba? Located on a river with a color in its name. Red River, White River, Yellow River, White Nile/Blue Nile, Orange River, Neva??, Puyallup River (but it appears that the White River flows into the Puyallup), Red River

LAST WEEK'S ANSWERS
1. Who made her film debut as seven-year-old "Tosh" in the 1982 Jon Voight vehicle Lookin' to Get Out? This was Voight's daughter Angelina Voight, today better known as "Angelina Jolie." She wouldn't make another film for over a decade. correct
2. Very large factorial numbers always end with a string of what repeated digit? You get a factorial of a number by multiplying it consecutively by every smaller integer. 5! = 5 x 4 x 3 x 2 x 1 = 120. The more times you multiply, you get lots of 5's and 2's and 0's, which means the final product will end with a long run of zeroes. I'm sorry, there's not usually this much math on the quiz.
3. On Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, puppet neighbors X and Henrietta were created as a reference to the best-known poem of what famous Victorian? X is an owl and Henrietta is a pussycat, so their (hopefully asexual) pairing is a nod to Edward Lear's famous, runcible poem. I apologize to those of you from the "Captain Kangaroo" generation who know nothing of this "Neighborhood of Make-Believe" I speak of. But you missed out on "Purple Panda." correct
4. What singer has been nicknamed the "Red Headed Stranger" since the debut of his hit album of that name? That was Willie Nelson. Weirdly, I always thought "Red Headed Stranger" was a euphemism for someone's period. Like, "Oooh, I'm getting my little visit from the 'Red Headed Stranger' this week!" correct
5. Where are you visiting if you're perusing the "columbarium"? A columbarium is a wall where urns of cremated people are kept, so you're probably in a church or a cemetery or something. Or the Addams Family house or something. Snap snap. how about that. I like learning useful words like columbarium and defenestration.
6. What country was ruled by the Sun King from 1643 all the way until 1715? Louis XIV, who ruled for a record 72 years, was "le Roi Soleil" of France. correct
7. What unusual distinction is shared by all these businesses/brands? ABC, Adidas, Amazon, AT&T, BP, Citibank, Hewlett-Packard, Macy's, Nickelodeon, Pepsi, UPS, Xerox. They all have all-lower-case logos...many of them adopted recently (Nickelodeon, Pepsi, Xerox). All-lower-case must be the hip new thing. I looked at the logos but this characteristic did not jump out at me. A reasonable question, though I would not call this distinction "unusual."