QUOTE: "The general trajectory has [gay television and movie characters] transitioning from minstrel acts and punch lines to relatable everyday characters. It's a new era where [being a gay family] is no longer a significant part of the story."

—David Hauslaib, founder of the media-focused blog Queerty

QUOTE: "How much messier was the Mad Men era than our own tangled-up, rumpled time? We may smoke fewer cigarettes, but we're likely cheating just as much. A Gallup report … shows that the percentage of Americans who consume alcohol is at 67%—not just a 21-year high but higher than it was in the Draper heyday of 1963. We're also holding steady on drug abuse. … Our forms of vice change—from martinis at lunch to ordering another bottle of wine at dinner, from quietly swallowing a few Mother's Little Helpers to hitting your friends up for Vicodin, from groping your secretary in the office to arranging a tryst with your high school flame via Facebook. It's clear that today isn't like the past. Most of us don't have ashtrays in our offices and our parents didn't sext each other during their courtships. Yet human nature, at its essence, probably doesn't change. We are neither more virtuous nor less; we just wear cheaper clothes."

—salon.com's Mary Elizabeth Williams

QUOTE: "I appreciate a good parody as much as the next guy, but to associate me with drugs and the filming of underage girls crosses a definite line."

—Girls Gone Wild producer Joe Francis, taking umbrage with the movie Piranha, which centers its sordid plot on a Girls Gone Wild-style camera crew. Francis says he won't be seeing the film. "But," he added, "I'm sure that my lawyer, Larry Stein, will be front and center opening day!"

About 6,000 former NFL players have filed suit against Electronic Arts for using their likenesses without permission in the video game Madden NFL 09. "The only significant detail that EA changes from the real-life retired NFL players is their jersey number," the lawsuit reads. "Despite EA's 'scrambling' of the retired NFL players' numbers, the games are designed so that consumers of the Madden NFL video game franchise will have no difficulty identifying who the 'historic' players are."

More than 70% of Americans ages 14 to 19 have gambled in the past year, according to the Institute for Research on Gambling Disorders. And teens, spurred on by the success of some extraordinarily young poker champions, are honing their card-playing skills online, winning—and losing—thousands in the process. World Series of Poker champ Joe Cada, who is only 22, says he practiced constantly over the Internet, sometimes playing more than 2,000 hands a day.

Houston's Woodlands Church is an incredibly tech-savvy place. Its 17,000 regular worshippers are invited to tweet questions during service, attend church on its "digital campus" and interact with one another on its own Facebook-like social networking hub. But pastor Kerry Shook and his wife, Chris, always take a "tech Sabbath" once a week (along with their four kids), and they recently asked their congregants to participate in a National Facebook Fast. "We love our technology … but it's not going to help our relationships," says Chris. "It's good for our networks and finding old friends. It's not good for sustaining deep and rich relationships over time."

According to market researcher Morpace, Facebook users spend one of every three minutes of their total time online on the social networking site. But are they burning out? Nearly 20% of teens say they are losing interest in Facebook, according to a survey of 600 teens this spring by online gaming site Roiworld. Of those teens, 16% said they're leaving Facebook now that their parents have joined, while 14% said there are just "too many adults and older people." More than 75% of parents on Facebook are now connected to their children's profiles, according to the report from AOL, which teamed up with The Nielsen Co. to survey 1,000 parents and 500 teens.

QUOTE: "The real story of Facebook is just that we've worked so hard for all this time. I mean, the real story is actually probably pretty boring, right? I mean, we just sat at our computers for six years and coded."

—Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, talking with ABC's Diane Sawyer about Social Network, a film that's been made about the now wildly successful Internet startup

QUOTE: "I feel trapped in my own body. There's just no fixing it. … I'm obsessed with fitness but it's impossible to work out with these [G-cup-sized implants]. … I'm desperate to go back to normal. I'm downgrading and going a little smaller, to a D or a double D. … It's heartbreaking. I can't live an everyday life."

—reality star Heidi Montag, not quite a year after she underwent 10 cosmetic surgeries designed to "sculpt" her body

Baby Gap has introduced "skinny jeans" for toddlers, with the smallest size fitting babies just out of the womb. The style, according to the retailer, accounts for 40% of its baby and toddler denim sales.

Mattel has unveiled new fashion dolls inspired by culture's obsession with vampires and werewolves. The Monster High brand includes Draculaura, who, oddly, according to a "bio" posted on the company's website, faints at the sight of blood; and Clawdeen Wolf, who frets over excessive hair issues.

QUOTE: "As our culture becomes more narcissistic and entitled we reject the shame that has accompanied the use of profanity in the past."

—Lesley Withers, an associate professor at Central Michigan University, who specializes in nonverbal communication, on the increased frequency of actors, singers, politicians and other public figures "giving the finger" in public situations

Celebrity news site hollywoodlife.com has reported obtaining a copy of Miley Cyrus' new movie LOL: Laughing Out Loud. In it the young singer/actress' character reportedly "loses her virginity, smokes pot, gets wasted and kisses two girlfriends on the lips."