Since my last post about the Lingerie Bowl proved very popular (by the standards of this blog, that is) I thought you might like to know the score from last night’s big game.

Apparently, the Los Angeles Temptation defeated the Chicago Bliss 27-14 “through the playmaking ability of QB Ali Eastlake and the clutch running of Monique Gaxiola,” whatever that means.

However, thousands of viewers who had subscribed to see the lingerie bowl were unable to see it until about an hour after the main Superbowl ended.

All they got to see was this message: “DUE TO THE OVERWHELMING INTERNET DEMAND, LINGERIE BOWL 7 WILL BE UP MOMENTARILY. PLEASE CHECK BACK SOON.” Not quite the appealing visual they had paid $9.95 for.

Mr Nobody, a creation of the peerless Roger Hargreaves, is to return to print in a new adventure in which he will meet Mr Happy. Here he is in the original story of 1985:

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, you must go and buy these books immediately. They are wonderful.

Although Roger Hargreaves died in 1988, his son Adam, also an illustrator, recently discovered Mr Nobody in his father’s archives and is bringing out a new story at the beginning of March.

In the original story, Mr Nobody was described as ‘somebody who sort of was, but wasn’t!’, and was unable to remember where he was from, who he is, or what he should be doing. Hopefully Mr Happy will help him out. I’ve very excited.

Today is the Superbowl, and I’m as excited as an English person who doesn’t know anything about American football can legitimately be. As far as I can tell, it’s like a lot of other sporting events, except possibly with more hotdogs and adverts.

But I’ve discovered that there is much more to this apparently testosterone-driven day. It’s called the Lingerie Bowl.

During half-time at the Super Bowl, two teams of women (the Los Angeles Temptation and the Chicago Bliss this year) will take to the field and play a full-contact game of football, dressed only in their lingerie. This is the final of the Lingerie Football League (LFL), and it looks like this:

A game consists of two 17-minute halves, separated by a 15-minute halftime. In the event of a tie, an 8-minute sudden-death overtime is played. They take it very seriously.

Most of the women are former competitive athletes in other sports, and the many of the teams are coached by former NFL players.

It’s very popular. Any idea why?

I am a reluctant twitter user, but have to admit that very occasionally it throws up a real gem.

Today, I found out that you can follow astronauts on twitter (@astro_soichi and @astro_jose, to be precise) and they are posting pictures of what they are seeing from space.

Like this one of the Golden Gate bridge:

And this one, of the moon:

This is where they are right now:

Somehow, receiving a single person’s impressions of space exploration rather than having it mediated through NASA or a news announcement makes it all the more exciting.

I’ve just come across this infographic on the eternally-fantastic good.is webzine.

I’ve pasted it above to give you an idea, but I highly recommend you click through to the interactive version.

The purpose of all the little people standing in their serried ranks like that is to demonstrate visually the number of Americans who took part in volunteer work last year. Some of the individual trends are rather piquant, such as the most popular voluntary activity among 45 – 54 year olds being that of a religious nature, and the fact that in every age group, women consistenly  out-volunteer men.

But overall, this is a happy story. In 2009, while in the grip of a recession, around a quarter of Americans of all ages chose to give up their time for free to do something for others. I hope it wasn’t just because some of them were unemployed.

Considering the title of this blog, I feel honour-bound to alert you to this lovely set of balloon-photos.

Personally, I like this one:

I’ve just stumbled across this amazing phenomenon on Flickr. Take a look at this image:

by Jason E. Powell

I was pretty struck by the simplicity of the idea: take an old photo, hold it up so it is contiguous with the location as it is now, and snap. Afterwards, you can make all kinds of grandiose statements about change and progress and stuff, but I think the beauty of it is that it needs no real explanation. Compare and contrast and marvel.

Turns out, there is a whole community devoted to doing this on Flickr (I love the internet). They call it ‘Looking into the Past’. Some of the images are real, some are created with software, but they are all arresting.

This one’s my personal favourite, although I would highly recommend you browse the whole gallery.

by Jason E. Powell

She’s walking a rabbit, for goodness’ sake.

New Year’s Resolution #42: blog more. Major changes coming, but in the meantime:

I have previously written about some pretty amazing-looking lightbulbs. But imagine if you could have lightbulbs that do more than light your room, look great and save the environment. Imagine if you could wirelessly stream your music through them too.

You can, and there’s more than one way to do it.

The Klipsch LightSpeaker System does just that. It includes recessed spotlights that you screw into your ceiling, a transmitter, and a remote that you can control your invisible sound system with. However, the bulbs themselves are disappointingly standard in appearance, and there’s this ominous sentence in the description: “Not intended to replace home theater speakers.” Sounds to me like the sound quality could be a bit poor. Shame.

But don’t despair. You could get this version, designed by Castiglione Morelli (great name). They look absolutely stunning, and come with a handy attachment to transmit directly from your iPod. Bad news if you’re not an Apple junkie, though.

Finally, for those who don’t like lightbulbs, or love ceiling fans, or something, there’s the Hunter Concert Breeze Ceiling Fan. It’s a ceiling fan that can integrate into your existing sound system. There’s also an attachment for a lightbulb as well. It even works outdoors, apparently, although I’m not sure what you’d attach it to. Bad news is, you can’t buy one yet.

Still, these ideas add a whole new dimension to the idea of surround sound.

My online journalism teacher showed me this – a film called ‘The Archive’ by Sean Dunne. God knows what blogowitz was trying to teach us, but I appreciate his tip nonetheless. Take a look:

It did the rounds about a year back, but I’ve never seen it before.

I own an original 1927 HMV gramophone and collect records I find in charity shops and at markets, so maybe I’m more inclined to sympathise with Paul Mawhinney, but I can’t help feeling that a collection like this should be incorporated into some kind of state library.

I tried to find out what has happened since this film was made, and came across this. Apparently he put the collection on eBay and received a winning bid of $3milllion, but it turned out to be a scam. The collection is still for sale.