Morning Meme: Who Wears Captain America's Tights, Muppet-palooza, Floating Beer Pong, and "Dr. Who" Gets a Date

Kevin Smith loves hockey almost as much as he hates Southwest Airlines. So when he got the chance to talk to a hockey reporter about his upcoming Cop Out, he let slip he’d found the star for Hit Somebody, his long delayed hockey film: Seann William Scott. This is great, because we already know Seann has no problem running around in a jock strap with his butt hanging out.

Defying all intelligence, a 1938 Superman #1 comic book has sold for a record $1 million. Maybe the owner can convince the Man of Steel to fly really, really fast around the world and turn back time so we can pass some banking regulation?

Spartacus: Blood and Sand ratings rebounded this past Friday from the dip they took against the Olympic Opening Ceremonies. In fact they gained back virtually all their viewers, even programmed against the Olympic broadcast. A little slave-on-gladiator kiss never fails to pack the house.

There’s an odd blog profiled over at sister site 365gay.com – it’s a gay high school hockey player. He’s not out, but he’s not completely closeted as his brother and his best friend know. He answered some questions for them, but the combination of the interview and blog is kind of fascinating. He’s so well thought out on some issues that when he says something that sounds like a common 17-year-old it’s so jarring, until the next statement, which is great.

Johnny Depp continues to participate in the press juggernaut that is Alice in Wonderland. The latest interview reveals, not unsurprisingly, that this wasn’t his first exposure to the material. He’s a lifelong fan of the original story, as well as most of the later interpretations. I was amused when he chose to base his performance on details such as “I’m investigating things that begin with the letter M.” That sounds rather like the Mad Hatter choice, doesn’t it?

A Colorado family and a cryogenics foundation have gone to court over custody of a woman’s head. The cryogenic foundation has a document giving them custody of her head, while the family says she revoked it and refuses to release the body (or head). The cryogenics firm has proposed splitting the remains, with the head going to them, but for some reason, the family found that unacceptable.

The UK will, unsurprisingly get to see Matt Smith’s premiere in new episodes of Dr. Who April 3, just in time for Easter. This is apparently a tradition. BBC America, meanwhile, has no dates scheduled for viewers on this side of the pond.

A new study has found that living in Los Angeles sucks. Despite the beaches, the glitz and the glamor, very few get to enjoy that kind of lifestyle. Meanwhile the wealth gap is stark:  1.4 million live in poverty, including  1 in 5 children.  Meanwhile, 250,000 of the 10 million residents are millionaires. Traffic, pollution and health care are terrible. West Virginia isn’t seeming so bad now. Wait – yes it is.

My subversive nature loves this post by activist David Badash over at The New Civil Rights Movement. He points out that Rising Voice, the arm of the anti-gay Focus on the Family responsible for recruiting youth, is taking a survey about the social issues youth care about. Go read his thoughts, and why don’t we ALL tell Rising Voice what social issues and positions we think they should take. They’d do it for you.

The Wall Street Journal explains the mechanics of how Southland made it over to TNT from NBC. It's not as simple as it looked.

For some unknown reason, every role in Hollywood must first be offered to someone from Twilight before anyone else can have a job. After Megan Fox said no to the Lara Croft reboot, they went to Kristen Stewart, the lip biting emotionally dead actress that pines for werewolves and vampires in the Twilight films. She doesn’t scream action star to me.

io9.com wants to know if Caprica is the Big Love of science fiction. I say not until I get to see how Nestor gets sweaty.

Robert Buckley, best known for being the boy toy for cougars in Lipstick Jungle and Flirting with Forty, is now being rumored for Captain America. In some ways it fits as he’s unknown to most of the intended viewers, he’s about 6’2” and built like a brick s**thouse. I hope there’s a naked transformation scene in this like Wolverine had.

A Maryland company is planning human trials for an HIV vaccine based on a modified version of the virus designed to attack the main strains. It’s an approach that had been discussed but then dismissed as too risky for years. But now that it’s had a 95% success rate in monkeys with SIV, then idea is moving forward again.

No-longer-jailbait Taylor Lautner is getting paid $7.5 million upfront to make Stretch Armstrong, but he’s walked away from the flyboy picture Northern Lights over “casting issues.” Two other movies are now in a bidding war to secure the filming slot opened up by his dropping Northern Lights. This from a man whose biggest claim to fame is a nice set of abs. Screw writing, I’ll be at the gym.

Twitter is the great equalizer, because it lets celebrities say things that make publicists feel faint. This picture came out via Nathan Fillion's Twitter, with the question "Can you guess who I'm crushing on?"

Well, I know who I wish you're crushing on.

Threadless somehow decided they could get this t-shirt past the copyright cops, so it's for sale right now. The artist calls it "Friendly Beast"

That's how I've always seen Elmo anyhow.

These cupcakes are more clearly a misuse of the characters, but since you can eat the evidence, I don't think there's much risk. Now if only it wasn't nine months until my birthday.

But is eating a Muppet right?

I really wish Jack would stab that creepy King with his nose or his hat - all those weird commercials would stop then, and I could sleep without nightmares.

Don't mess with Jack.

To help you speed the process of getting college guys drunk and out of their clothes, we present this floating Beer Pong set, available for sale for a mere $49.99.

Pool party at the frat house.

The sanctity of marriage. Or of divorce. Kind of hard to tell here.

The world of advertising takes us into the world of public safety. Evidently train crossings are some like an minor obstacle in some parts of Indonesia, so they've been trying out these signs on barriers and have seen a marked downtick in people getting plowed by trains.

Certainly a visual representation of what you're risking.

This monkey is playing leap frog with a goat. Your argument is invalid.