You never did say if you have your screen lock active, but I would suggest setting up the lock. That will at least help with icons not being pressed and activated while jostling about in your bag. And perhaps save some battery life, too 😉
Come to think of it, I have an app called Ambiance that I use on my Touch (my fav app for "background noise" while working), and synced it to my iPad. I turned it on once to **** with it a bit, shut it down and the sound continued to play on. I think some of the non-iPad apps, perhaps, aren't doing a "graceful close." It must linger in memory for a bit before it figures out it was supposed to stop.
That still doesn't explain your iPod icon, but using the lock feature may help at least not run down your battery in the meantime.