Morning Meme: "Modern Family" Disappoints, Michael Bublé's Butt, Yeti, and Puppies!

The Paley Center sat down with Modern Family this weekend. They covered a range of issues that upset me including the fact that Ty Burrell (Phil) got the biggest applause, showing how little taste the crowd has. The big issue: When asked if Mitchell and Cameron might ever show some affection, Eric Stonestreet (Cameron) had an answer:  ‘They’re too busy raising a child, but if the show goes on for many more seasons, it’ll happen “in due time.”’ So Phil has time to try and get busy on Valentine’s Day and the first day of school, but the gays need to wait a few years? But at least they all get to go to Hawaii.

Jayma Mays, who plays Emma Pillsbury on Glee, got ambushed outside a Fox party and grilled on how hot and heavy she and Mr. Schue are going to get when the show finally returns. She was pretty cagey, but I doubt she’d put the effort in avoidance in if there wasn’t something there.

I think it’s awful that an iceberg the size of Luxembourg is trapped in the South Pacific and may bring total ecological disaster. But I also want to know when we decided that “an iceberg the size of Luxembourg” was a descriptive statement. I know I’m an American, and we’re famously oblivious to world geography, but I couldn’t tell you with any precision how big my yard is, much less how big Luxembourg is. My understanding is that it’s not huge for a country, but is it large for an ice berg?

First the good news: Southland is back with new episodes this week, which I really appreciate because I normally don’t turn the television on Tuesday nights. Even better? The New York Post has a great interview with Michael Cudlitz. What makes that more than just “better”? The interview was writer by AfterElton.com reader Eric Hegedus, who’s a real journalist.

La Cage Aux Folles on Broadway starts rehearsal today, according to hunky Cagelle Nick Adams. I’ve been following along with him and some of the other cast members getting wardrobe and makeup – it looks like a huge amount of work.

Idol Insider has a bunch of footage from out musician Matt Morris playing some gigs in his hometown of Denver – his first hometown gigs since he did Letterman, Ellen, and the Haiti telethon. It was definitely “hometown boy done good” as my grandmother would say.

Snooki and Vinny of Jersey Shore brought down the roof at a celebration of the Jewish holiday of Purim in New York City. Officially, the glass ceiling collapsed from the weight of snow, but I think it coud have been the fist pumping music. I recall being at a circuit party in Palm Springs for New Years 1999/2000when a DJ change caused pieces of chandelier to start falling on us.

Apple audited the manufacturing firms that produce its products for fair labor practices, and the results were bad enough to shock Kathy Lee Gifford. 54% exceeded the maximum 60 hour work week, 24% pay less than minimum wage, and three facilities employed underage workers. Apple is taking action against the firms while trying to not delay any big launches.

Michael Bublé loves it when gay men pinch his butt.

We don’t know when, or what he’s going to sing, or if he has to visit Haiti first, but Adam Lambert will make the traditional return to the American Idol stage this season. We shouldn’t forget that he’s also appearing on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno tomorrow night.

My excuse for the super hot guy in the teaser? His armpit symbolized this list of Which 7 Cities Have the Worst B.O.? If you live in the southwest or Texas, I’ve got bad news, which I’ll deliver as soon as you step downwind of me.

New York City and Tokyo, there is now outdoor advertising tackier than yours. A coffee ad in Ekaterinburg, Russia wraps completely around a 35-story condominium building, and is truly a site to behold.

The BBC is shrinking – or so they say. The publicly funded media empire is closing part of its web presence and dramatically cutting spending on American imports. The purpose is to cut back on the share of the advertising market the BBC commands and give smaller, for-profit rivals more of a chance. I’m O.K. with this as long as they don’t stop selling us their good programming.

In addition to the mountain of dancers that producer Adam Shankman has planned for the Oscars next week, they announced that Sacha Baron Cohen, Jason Bateman, Steve Carell, Tina Fey and Ben Stiller will be presente…..zzzz. Sorry – even thinking about that made me doze off.

The Rockford Files is coming back to television in the fall, and they’ve cast Dermot Mulroney, most familiar as Julia Roberts’ best friend in My Best Friend’s Wedding, as Jim Rockford.

Hello, Monday! But doesn't this face help?

Now that you're smiling, we missed a birthday over the weekend. Dame Elizabeth Taylor turned 78 on Saturday, and gets the rainbow cupcake for all her efforts raising money for AIDS research, as well as her fondness for having drinks at The Abbey to this day.

Dame Elizabeth Taylor with her rainbow cupcake.

All weekend, I've watched our Twitter and Facebook pages go nuts with fans of curling, and fans of the Norwegian Olympic Curling Team's pants. I don't know that I can personally rock that look, but I can manage this t-shirt from Goodwig Design.

The United States had Ralph Lauren design everything.

I'd love to be able to argue with this picture, but having watched two weeks of Olympic coverage and the four billion McDonald's commercials implying you can eat fast food and still compete, I think there's a lot of truth here.

The American (yes, I read it) version of Michaelangelo's David.

The first optical whatsit of the week - I don't know if I can properly call these things illusions. They're just hypnotic. When I'm looking for new ones I can lose hours.

What is it? A jiggle, or a squiggle?

In Russia, Zhora the chimpanzee has been sent to rehab to cure his beer drinking and smoking addictions. Why they don't just stop giving him beer and cigarettes, I have no idea. This isn't an unusual problem with chimpanzees, however. Pictured below is Ai Ai, a 26-year-old Chinese chimpanzee with an obvious habit.

How do they get the habit to start with?

Straight people have some really strange fetishes. Really strange stuff here.

It's still snowing outside, and has been pretty much nonstop since December 18th. But I'm yet to see this guy, and I'm grateful for that.

I've always liked a hairy chest, but this may be a bit far.

Today in advertising, I've got a twofer. First, we have a classic Nintendo ad showing just how entrancing these little game systems are. Judging by my little cousins, this isn't far from the truth.

To be fair to the kid, how fast could piranha manage that?

And finally, I'm going to assume this is supposed to mean that the car is fast.