This year, I'm all experimenting-with-colorsed out, so we won't be doing the traditional Painting of the Fairy Lights. Perhaps we'll do it again next year, but I've been seeing some small progress on the "make colored LED light sets exactly how I want!" front - a few people have sent me some sets where they 1) have a yellow (!) and B) that yellow is really just a white LED with a yellow cap! So maybe next year the mysterious festive lighting conglomerates of the world will finally get their act together in the particularly pedantic way I want them to.
@@christophercoleman3162 I am firmly in the incandescent camp for multi-colored light sets because those blue LEDs are just too dang piercing. For plain warm white, I'm cool with LEDs except for my all-time favorite light sets, the twinkling kind, which just can't be duplicated well-enough in LED. If you haven't seen the earlier experiment videos, what I hope is that some manufacturer starts making multi-colored sets which have warm white LEDs but colored caps, therefore achieving their color through filtering and not the monochromatic color canons of LEDs today, but I fear they wouldn't sell well because people are monsters.
@@TechnologyConnections Inexpensive LED lights also flicker, being built around a half-wave rectifier with little to no smoothing. The resulting mains-frequency flicker is noticeable to some and _really annoying_ to a subset of those. I'd love to see an LED string with an adjustable constant-current power supply ("dimmable," no flicker), but no dice on those in big box stores.
@@TechnologyConnections Thank You, my family has always used incandescent bulbs. Last year we purchased LEDs to save energy, and the tree didn't look the same after that. This year we decided to go back to incandescent bulbs. I think that they are just the perfect balance of warm light and color.
Buddy have you never been to a TJ Maxx or Marshalls or any other store ever? It's already a thing, I'm pretty sure my mom has multiple things that say that.
When I was a kid, I was helping decorate our tree one year. We had already strung all the bubble lights, and they were lit up and bubbling. I went to hang one small but heavy little ornament, but it slipped from my fingers. As it fell, I naturally followed its path down with my eyes. And at that moment it struck the tip of a red bubble light... which then exploded liquid into my face and onto the ceiling. I then ended up at the ER getting my eyes flushed with water. Needless to say, we never used bubble lights again. Despite that, I still actually have fond memories of watching their dangerous bubbling glow.
I'm so glad Alec lives in the age of RUclips. 20 years earlier, and Alec's humour and passion would be wasted on a class of Gr 12 Physics students waiting for the lunch bell.
I'm sure you'll be amazed to learn that people actually used to clip candles to the branches of their Christmas tree. Yes, *candles,* which you light on fire, directly attached to a highly flammable object! To be fair, they were only lit for a short time, and kept under constant supervision when lit. But these clip-on candles were what the first electric Christmas tree lights were designed to emulate, and were initially made by telephone company engineers using the tiny light bulbs (made by Western Electric) used in telephone operator switchboards.
Can confirm. My family has a book that covers Christmases for different generations of our family members going back as far as late 1700s. I cannot remember which decade, but there is a story in there about one of the Christmases and lighting the indoor Christmas tree with candles. Apparently each family member had a section of the tree to watch to look for fire. Was written in a way that made it clear this was pretty common at the time.
Yes! I always thought that bubble lights were meant to replicate candles on a tree. I thought they were really interesting but had a hard time finding them as a kid. Eventually, I found a single bubble light night-light.
@@lindendrache8998 seasoning (as in seasons of the year, winter, summer) and seasoning as in stuff you put to your food, garlic powder, salt, onion, peper. "Seasoning greetings" something like that.
It must be some kind of inside Menards joke, cause I didn't get it... I didn't even know what Menards was until I googled it. West Coast doesn't have them.
@@neillthornton1149 Menards is famous for offering a 11% rebate on purchases. Rebate comes in the form of a store credit so it's a way to get you back to the store.
I married into a bubble light family in the early 90's. Discovered the first year that the bulb bases fit beautifully into that other holiday decorating item that peaked in the '70s: The fake plastic candelabrum you put on your windowsill. We found bubble lights with white bulbs (not at Menard's) and now my mother is a fan.
@@vorrnth8734 But which one was he using? He didn't say! He only narrowed it down to metric! (And I refuse to use the internet to look it up or even consider that 39 degrees could only sanely be in C, I understand it gets cold in that part of the world so I'm free to assume that 39k is the normal winter temperature there.)
Growing up in the 1960's, I remember our ubble lights were made by Noma. I loved gazing at the tree, bubble lights bubbling away, breathing the enticing aroma of my Mother's baking Christmas cookies! Wonderful memories!
The "pop" the lamps make when they start bubbling is called superheating. In a nutshell it occurs when an absolutely flat surface (Glass) does not provide any starting point for the liquid to start bubbling. The liquid will become hotter as its boiling point till the stored energy its too much and - pop- it boils rapidly. you can observe this phenomena sometimes if you heat milk in an absolutely clean cup in an microwave. Everything looks good, till you touch the cup. Then the impulse you are causing lets superheated water in the milk boil rapidly, causing the milk to overflow. And burn your hand. In chemistry labs we use "Boiling rocks"; Small chemical inert stones with a high and rough surface area to disturb the liquid enough to form the first bubble. In reactors superheated material can cause big problems. Nearly burned the lab down with one...
These of course, would be an accurate physicist's explanations for the explained/proposed observed phenomena. Physics is (not are) fun ... but hard. . : .
I thought maybe that the crystals (salt?) were added to help prevent this superheating and act as "boiling rocks". Wasn't talked about much in the video.
I once somehow managed to superheat water in a pot on my stove. I was just starting to think it was taking longer than usual to boil and leaned in to get a closer look, when suddenly a single huge bubble of steam formed in the bottom of the pot and splashed about half of the water out onto the stove and floor. Fortunately there was enough water that it was too heavy to splash very high and thus didn't hit my face, but I still had a mess to clean up.
@Alec Mesa I work at one and I can confirm, if it isn't hardware related it's either menards brand or some weird off brand crap. Even with an employee discount I'd rather shop anywhere else for something
I continue to love the fact that you do ACTUAL captions for every video rather than just having auto-captions!! I appreciate that very much (and nearly lost it at weird Christmas tree rustling 😂)
seconded! i usually don't NEED them here because he speaks clearly and doesn't mix distracting music in, but i always appreciate that they're there and that they're done right. accessibility is good and appreciated!
You need something to lift up your spirit in those dark times, watching your countrymen and potentially family members contribute to the chaos and destruction elsewhere in the world.
I love bubble lights and grew up with them. When I finally bought my first christmas tree as an adult, the first thing I did was go out and buy two long strands of them. My wife had never seen them before and was so entertained by them, as well as me being that excited over something.
Back when I worked there 25 years ago, every time that jingle came over the TVs we'd sing under our breath "shave big monkeys at Menards!" Ah, the memories.
OMG, this thread has so many jokes that were lost by just a word or two. I mean look at this "Mx. TV-8-301" person... That "a" just ruined the whole joke! COME ON!
My grandma has been using these bubble Christmas lights for years, and I never really gave it much thought until now. I’m guessing she’s had them since the 60s, as she has a lot of mid-century stuff that has come back in style recently. The lights are pretty cool now that you mention it.
My mom loves bubble lights. Every year our Christmas tree was adorned with them, and the same set lasted for decades. When they finally burned out, finding replacements was a nightmare, but luckily I was able to score some on ebay on the cheap. And nowadays, I have a set of bubble lights for my own Christmas tree.
To be fair, they are not left burning unattended and a fire extinguisher is kept close (or at least a bucket of water). It could be argued that unattended incandescent bulbs are more dangerous.
Never seen them myself and I don't think anyone over here would still try that after a hotel once burned down after a candle on a nearby table lit up a tree during a new years eve party.
@@dr.eldontyrell-rosen926 Is this a joke or are you really surprised to hear that? I know the US only from t.v. shows and films and now that I think of it, I think I've never seen a (fictional) US American have actual candles burning on their tree.
Thanks for doing this video. I first saw these lights when I was a little boy in the 1950's. My grandparents had them and I was totally fascinated by these lights. We have these lights today to relive that wonderful childhood memory.
Fun thing is, many years ago, I actually did accidentally find Wikipedia for the first time, before it was so well known as it is today. And it was amazing how much useless knowledge I could spout and tell people "there's an awesome website I found that is like an encyclopedia, and you can help write the articles!"
Could you imagine him on LSD... Or even high? He's already inordinately fascinated by seemingly mundane things. It would be like double rainbow, but about a toaster. Now that I mention it... I'd watch that
@@willlllllllllllllllllll I'm am american and this video is the first time I've ever heard of them. Could be a Midwest specific thing, or they're just a thing of the past at this point.
I had an aunt who had a tabletop tree with bubble lamps that screwed directly into the branches. She finally gave up,on it in the late 80s when it got harder to buy the bulbs locally.
“Some”? More like everyone in Europe. Tho the practice came from the Norse combined with the invectus sol practices, that the mid (around the Lutheran reformation) Christian church adopted.
@@LilnutSox No kidding! Was watching it 2 nights ago w/the kids (3 and 5) on Disney+ and I jumped up and shouted "holy shit that was Donald Trump!" The wife was not pleased.
I love bubble lights! These are really different from the ones I had as a kid in the 80s, which actually did have serviceable parts. They were smaller, the glass tubes were separate, and the bulb was a normal Christmas light. They basically took a normal string of lights and clipped the little plastic base around them and then slid the glass tubes into the base. You could sometimes get the base to clip around other random lights on the tree and space them out more if the lights were the right shape. They didn’t pop or make much noise either. I wish we still had those types of bubble lights!
I too grew up with these and they were smaller back then (60's). They did make the same bubbling sound as the larger ones. I'll have to see if I can find them and look at the construction. I don't think they could come apart. Great memories. ❤
Yeah, I have a photo of my grandparets and christmas tree decorated with burning candles. I still have small candle holders with a clip and pointy thing where you stick candles.
My mom spent the first eleven or twelve years of her life on a farm without electricity (born in 1933). She told me that they put candles on Christmas trees, but would only keep them lit for a few minutes at a time, with buckets of water ready to douse the tree if it caught fire.
Bubble lights were the highlight of my Grandparent's Christmas tree each year. It was the only place I ever saw them - ever. I was fascinated by the bubbles, though the base would get pretty hot as far as I couls tell.
Hey we have these on our tree! Same set since the early 2000s, they all still work. I had always assumed they were full of water, but had never bothered to actually check. Can't wait to see this year's holiday special videos.
The indent at the top is for a wire hook to wrap around and hold the tube vertical. The originals shipped with a black soft iron branch hook. The screw socket base had a spring clip to clamp on branches. If not for the wire hook at the top there was little chance getting the tubes vertical. Those old lights only tolerated a few degrees off vertical and each bulb was different. After a few installs you got to know how much off vertical each tube could tolerate. Many the time I cut a notch in a branch to get the clip and hook correctly oriented. Changing to soft plastic bases with intergal branch hooks from hard Bakeolite and adding "salt" instead the round metallic heat concentrators made hanging the lights much easier
I'm Australian, so I had never seen lights like until about a decade ago when I saw some RUclips videos about them and ended up importing a few boxes from the US, along with a 300W 240-110V stepdown transformer. I also bought a couple of boxes of the potion bottle ones from ThinkGeek when that was still a thing. I love that noise they make as they first 'explode' into bubbles after powering on.
They are my fav lights! Thanks for doing a show on them. They got Really hard to find from the late 90's until recently and yeah, they are pretty expensive as far as lights go. Consider them more as entertainment than lighting and that helps take out some of the sting!
Well, in the really olde days this was done. Not sure what the safety/disaster record was but, some research could reveal some answers. (The Germans may still, in some areas.)
@@jamesmiller4184 My familiy still does it that way. Though we only light the candles once or twice. Now we use a little tree in a pot that we reuse every year. An alive tree is obviously less dangerous.
@@davidbarmann Or Home Alone, where Buzz is listing the various reasons it's no big deal Kevin got left at home. Because of this scene I use "A," "2," and "D" whenever I can for three-item lists. ruclips.net/video/gVGbDEAnDyo/видео.html
I had a version of these that slipped onto mini lights when I was a kid! They were so cool! I wish I still had them. not sure if they used the same liquid or not, but they were a very similar design, just with essentially a replaceable bulb as they just friction fit on a standard mini light socket.
My Grandparents had a set of these that they owned for a long time. I remember me and my siblings watching them all over the tree waiting for one to just pop and start bubbling, but in their final few years less and less of them worked. They lit up, but wouldn't ever start to bubble. Just for memory's sake I am tempted to go out and pick up a set
Might I just add, I'm so glad to have found this channel! It's the channel I never knew I needed! 😂 My day is not started until I've watched at last one video from you!
I have fond memories of these being on the tree at one of my grandparents homes. I grew up in the 80, so well past their heyday, but that set of grandparents was known for being especially frugal, so it doesn't surprise me that they're a throwback from even earlier.
Growing up we had a set of mini bubble lights that just slipped over a standard miniature Christmas light. I'll have to root around next time I'm at my parents house to see if they're still around.
These had a random mini comeback in the 90s for about one Christmas. My aunt got a set then and still uses them on her tree. I gotta check this year how many (if any) still bubble.
This year, I'm all experimenting-with-colorsed out, so we won't be doing the traditional Painting of the Fairy Lights. Perhaps we'll do it again next year, but I've been seeing some small progress on the "make colored LED light sets exactly how I want!" front - a few people have sent me some sets where they 1) have a yellow (!) and B) that yellow is really just a white LED with a yellow cap! So maybe next year the mysterious festive lighting conglomerates of the world will finally get their act together in the particularly pedantic way I want them to.
Are LED Lights or conventional Christmas lights better?
@@christophercoleman3162 I am firmly in the incandescent camp for multi-colored light sets because those blue LEDs are just too dang piercing. For plain warm white, I'm cool with LEDs except for my all-time favorite light sets, the twinkling kind, which just can't be duplicated well-enough in LED. If you haven't seen the earlier experiment videos, what I hope is that some manufacturer starts making multi-colored sets which have warm white LEDs but colored caps, therefore achieving their color through filtering and not the monochromatic color canons of LEDs today, but I fear they wouldn't sell well because people are monsters.
@@TechnologyConnections Inexpensive LED lights also flicker, being built around a half-wave rectifier with little to no smoothing. The resulting mains-frequency flicker is noticeable to some and _really annoying_ to a subset of those. I'd love to see an LED string with an adjustable constant-current power supply ("dimmable," no flicker), but no dice on those in big box stores.
Your jokes are priceless
@@TechnologyConnections Thank You, my family has always used incandescent bulbs. Last year we purchased LEDs to save energy, and the tree didn't look the same after that. This year we decided to go back to incandescent bulbs. I think that they are just the perfect balance of warm light and color.
“Seasonings Greetings” would make a great quote for a towel or kitchen apron.
He needs to make this into some merch.
I thought he was talking about blues clues...
Problem with that. You would be miss spelling "Marry Christmas."
Buddy have you never been to a TJ Maxx or Marshalls or any other store ever? It's already a thing, I'm pretty sure my mom has multiple things that say that.
I smell a merch opportunity for this channel...
Don't give his merch any ideas!
When I was a kid, I was helping decorate our tree one year. We had already strung all the bubble lights, and they were lit up and bubbling. I went to hang one small but heavy little ornament, but it slipped from my fingers. As it fell, I naturally followed its path down with my eyes. And at that moment it struck the tip of a red bubble light... which then exploded liquid into my face and onto the ceiling. I then ended up at the ER getting my eyes flushed with water. Needless to say, we never used bubble lights again. Despite that, I still actually have fond memories of watching their dangerous bubbling glow.
Well that’s a rollercoaster of a comment.
You should have been wearing safety glasses and a respirator while decorating the tree. What were you thinking? LOL
@Pennsylvania _Mike National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation comes to mind
That,s Cool ! think might have thrown out but maybe one or more in thje attic , i,ll take a look when the snow flys .
@Pennsylvania _Mike 19th century
I'm so glad Alec lives in the age of RUclips. 20 years earlier, and Alec's humour and passion would be wasted on a class of Gr 12 Physics students waiting for the lunch bell.
Ikr
Man I'd have loved him as a teacher
I could imagine him doing vhs educational videos that the teacher rolls out when they're too hungover to teach class
He teaches _physics_ of all things?!?!???
Not wasted, but truly a lost potential for a much larger audience.
I'm sure you'll be amazed to learn that people actually used to clip candles to the branches of their Christmas tree. Yes, *candles,* which you light on fire, directly attached to a highly flammable object! To be fair, they were only lit for a short time, and kept under constant supervision when lit. But these clip-on candles were what the first electric Christmas tree lights were designed to emulate, and were initially made by telephone company engineers using the tiny light bulbs (made by Western Electric) used in telephone operator switchboards.
Can confirm. My family has a book that covers Christmases for different generations of our family members going back as far as late 1700s. I cannot remember which decade, but there is a story in there about one of the Christmases and lighting the indoor Christmas tree with candles. Apparently each family member had a section of the tree to watch to look for fire. Was written in a way that made it clear this was pretty common at the time.
We still use candles
@@mynameismads2516 So do we. Although our christmas tree is actually a tiny very much alive tree so it is less dangerous
revival!
Yes! I always thought that bubble lights were meant to replicate candles on a tree. I thought they were really interesting but had a hard time finding them as a kid. Eventually, I found a single bubble light night-light.
"Where is he..."
"Seasonings greetings"
Oooh. Oh. You sneak.
I lost it
At first I honestly thought he just had a little too much nutmeg....
Is this a joke that only Americans get? I don't get it, can you please explain? ^^
@@lindendrache8998 seasoning (as in seasons of the year, winter, summer) and seasoning as in stuff you put to your food, garlic powder, salt, onion, peper.
"Seasoning greetings" something like that.
I had to pause the video and collect myself after that one.
I lost it at the 11% rebate line. For a second I thought you were going to break into a full Svengoolie-like Menards commercial parody.
It must be some kind of inside Menards joke, cause I didn't get it... I didn't even know what Menards was until I googled it. West Coast doesn't have them.
@@neillthornton1149 In the part of Indiana I live in, we have one Lowes, one Home Depot and two Menards. It's a midwest thing.
@@neillthornton1149 Menards is famous for offering a 11% rebate on purchases. Rebate comes in the form of a store credit so it's a way to get you back to the store.
@@neillthornton1149 This may help you understand: ruclips.net/video/Y7BtecERapk/видео.html
@@calvinkatt662 You save big money, you save big money, when you shop Menards.
I now want a kitchen towel that says, "seasonings greetings".
Avery....Good one...clever..!!
I'm sure that phrase has appeared on some kind of product before.
@@FrothingFanboy probably, but if this channel ever adds something of the sort to a merch lineup I'm totally there to support the channel XD
www.etsy.com/listing/879040972/seasonings-greetings-handmade-funny?gpla=1&gao=1&&:pla-4584894770611550_c__879040972&msclkid=ef2febb3e7ec1cda70d7b47784f13730
Apparently this channel suddenly needs a teespring
And just like that, this man has near single handedly brought back bubble lights.
Literally about to go out and get some rn lol
@@IanRoach17 same
@@stellanstafford6025 yes indeed
they never went away...I've had a set for years
@@JerrSpud and people still have old cars with tailfins, doesn’t mean that they’re making a comeback.
I married into a bubble light family in the early 90's. Discovered the first year that the bulb bases fit beautifully into that other holiday decorating item that peaked in the '70s: The fake plastic candelabrum you put on your windowsill. We found bubble lights with white bulbs (not at Menard's) and now my mother is a fan.
“He probably just wanted to make... a thing... and these are them.” Made me laugh harder than it should have 😂
"metric degrees" - can't believe I've never heard Celsius called that before. It made me giggle.
Wouldn't "metric degrees" be Kelvin though? 🤔
@@StefanBrodd Both are metric .
@@vorrnth8734 But which one was he using? He didn't say! He only narrowed it down to metric!
(And I refuse to use the internet to look it up or even consider that 39 degrees could only sanely be in C, I understand it gets cold in that part of the world so I'm free to assume that 39k is the normal winter temperature there.)
Even Fahrenheit degrees are metric.
@@StefanBrodd there isn't a thing called kelvin degrees, they're just kelvin
Growing up in the 1960's, I remember our ubble lights were made by Noma. I loved gazing at the tree, bubble lights bubbling away, breathing the enticing aroma of my Mother's baking Christmas cookies! Wonderful memories!
Noma you must be Canadian .
@abbush2921 LOL Noma was once THE biggest Christmas light string manufacturer. They were also the 1st to market bubble lights.
The “seasonings greetings” pun is way more clever than it has any right being.
Straight up murdered me. Couldn't even blink for a solid 5 seconds
The long hold from the camera was phenomenal
wow my brain is so smooth that I didn't even get the joke until you mentioned it
@@JanBabiuchHall I could tell he was building up to something and I still had a visceral reaction to hearing it but that IS the mark of a good pun.
It is nearly "Dad joke" worthy!
"a. This is a no-effort-november"
"2. I like these things"
Home Alone reference 😂
@@Patrick94GSR and consitency takes effort, too.
I thought he was going to say, just kidding, I’ve taken it apart right here with the magic of buying two of them.
Imagining the people writhing at that brings me slight joy.
Hahaha. I do that unconsciously since my brain forgets where it is. I have internal pointer issues.
Surely these should be rebranded as "RGB Lights with integrated liquid cooling" and sold to gamers ?
Hilarious and true.
"Ruth Gator Binsburg"?? I'm not a gamer :-(
Yes, they should. And don’t call me Shirley.
Just picked up some 240hz Razer bubble lights myself
@@donovanwisdom310 this is outstanding and I wish I could give you more than one like
The "pop" the lamps make when they start bubbling is called superheating. In a nutshell it occurs when an absolutely flat surface (Glass) does not provide any starting point for the liquid to start bubbling. The liquid will become hotter as its boiling point till the stored energy its too much and - pop- it boils rapidly. you can observe this phenomena sometimes if you heat milk in an absolutely clean cup in an microwave. Everything looks good, till you touch the cup. Then the impulse you are causing lets superheated water in the milk boil rapidly, causing the milk to overflow. And burn your hand. In chemistry labs we use "Boiling rocks"; Small chemical inert stones with a high and rough surface area to disturb the liquid enough to form the first bubble. In reactors superheated material can cause big problems. Nearly burned the lab down with one...
These of course, would be an accurate physicist's explanations for the explained/proposed observed phenomena.
Physics is (not are) fun ... but hard.
. : .
I thought maybe that the crystals (salt?) were added to help prevent this superheating and act as "boiling rocks". Wasn't talked about much in the video.
❤❤❤
I once somehow managed to superheat water in a pot on my stove. I was just starting to think it was taking longer than usual to boil and leaned in to get a closer look, when suddenly a single huge bubble of steam formed in the bottom of the pot and splashed about half of the water out onto the stove and floor. Fortunately there was enough water that it was too heavy to splash very high and thus didn't hit my face, but I still had a mess to clean up.
Is that why you sometimes had to flick them to get them going? There just wasn't a good nucleation site so you had to make your own?
"Menards" sounds like a pirate who just got kicked in the groin
ruclips.net/video/Y7BtecERapk/видео.html
@@Pacvalham perfect
Save big money.
@Alec Mesa I work at one and I can confirm, if it isn't hardware related it's either menards brand or some weird off brand crap. Even with an employee discount I'd rather shop anywhere else for something
They have one of the most obnoxious yet catchy jingles. Even if you're not a fan, it will get stuck in your head for days!
"A: this is no effort november
2: I like these things."
No Effort November.. . finally, finally something to like about that horrid month. . .
Omg, I didn't even catch that when he said it. Amazing 🤣
WE should extend it into Do no work December
@@dewiz9596 hey, be nice, it’s my birthday month
A sick reference to Home Alone
I think this is the closest we've ever been to a no-effort-november video that's actually no effort.
So it took him plenty of effort to get around to no effort.
You saying,
"A and 2"
while listing points at 4:30 is possibly the most subtle Home Alone reference ever. I love it.
Hmm, I would have said Car Talk. Good catch!
"But A: [...], and 2: [...]"
This is the quality script writing we subscribe for.
Writing that was obviously actual effort in the No Effort November, so 'boo'
@@LelouchVee copy & pasting from the 'home alone' script is minimal effort at most
Buzz needed to go to D next.
I didn’t even notice! XD
The solvent in these is the same stuff as what’s used in drinking birds. Versatile stuff for all SORTS of kitsch.
Drinking birds more often use tap water, it's the evaporation that makes them work. No need to use anything more than water.
But quite nasty. Use of chlorinated solvents is on the way out industrially and academically.
@@dennis8196 OP's talking about DCM or some other solvent inside the bird. The stuff that moves up and down the stem.
owo
@@dennis8196
It uses the solvent for the stem of the bird.
You use water to cool the bird which then causes the solvent to climb the stem
I continue to love the fact that you do ACTUAL captions for every video rather than just having auto-captions!! I appreciate that very much (and nearly lost it at weird Christmas tree rustling 😂)
TIL I’ve been missing out on additional TC weirdness by not having CC on.
Automatic captions are worthless.
seconded! i usually don't NEED them here because he speaks clearly and doesn't mix distracting music in, but i always appreciate that they're there and that they're done right. accessibility is good and appreciated!
Dude, you're a Midwestern treasure. Don't ever let anyone take that part of you away and remain proud for all of us Midwesterners.
"Carl, it's 1941, and we're knee deep in the war! What have you engineered to help us?"
"Bubbly Christmas lights!"
I was thinking the same thing
You need something to lift up your spirit in those dark times, watching your countrymen and potentially family members contribute to the chaos and destruction elsewhere in the world.
I mean, to be fair, he filed for his patent in November 6. Pearl Harbor happened on December 7.
@@skrenos Well then it's a good thing he got in early.
How many months HAD the patent lawyer been working on those drawings BEFORE filing?
"Seasonings greetings!"
AAAAAUGH I cannot BELIEVE that caught me off guard like that
I laughed loud and hard at the 11% rebate cutoff. As a fellow midwesterner, Menard's 11% rebate weeks are a big part of my life as well.
_ah, yes, the lightbulbs that double as lvl 1 alchemical weapons_
True genius to use "alchemical", not boring old "chemical!" 🤣
That opening pun made me physically ill. Good start 😂
50% off and an 11% rebate on EVERYTHING!!! I love the midwest lol.
Until you have to wait for a rebate check to arrive xD
Quote from my Midwestern wife in the form of a jingle: "Save big money at Menards!"
The approximate equivalent here in Maine is "I shoulda bought it when I saw it at Marden's!"
ALL RISE FOR THE ANTHEM OF THE MIDWEST.
I always sing it as "spank your monkey at Menards!" Sorry.
My favorite Menards knockoff commercial ruclips.net/video/VZAP-8z7_vo/видео.html
"Seasons Greetings to you all from Menards"
I love bubble lights and grew up with them. When I finally bought my first christmas tree as an adult, the first thing I did was go out and buy two long strands of them. My wife had never seen them before and was so entertained by them, as well as me being that excited over something.
My grandparents still have these. They're probably from the 70's too.
You can ask your grand parents when they were born. They might be from the 70s after all.
As a Midwesterner (WI), I just want to say I appreciate the Menard's gags.
Wonder big he saved big money at Menards...
Back when I worked there 25 years ago, every time that jingle came over the TVs we'd sing under our breath "shave big monkeys at Menards!"
Ah, the memories.
@ TODAY!
In CO, never seen a Menards :(
OMG, this thread has so many jokes that were lost by just a word or two.
I mean look at this "Mx. TV-8-301" person...
That "a" just ruined the whole joke!
COME ON!
"... and I got an 11% rebate on EV-"
Season's Greetings from Menards!
He was about to say: Amazon , but didn't want to advertise Amazon or encourage people to shop on Amazon.
*Seasonings greetings
Nah, it's Menards. They've got 11% rebates sometimes
@@Platitudinous9000 more often than not, lol
@@josephbennett3482 someone’s not a Midwesterner. Menards runs “11% rebate on EVERYTHING!” promotions quite often.
My grandma has been using these bubble Christmas lights for years, and I never really gave it much thought until now. I’m guessing she’s had them since the 60s, as she has a lot of mid-century stuff that has come back in style recently. The lights are pretty cool now that you mention it.
Our family had these in the 1950s, and they were my favorite things on the tree.
That opening joke had me seriously questioning my Patreon pledge
Do you feel a-salted?
It reaffirmed my pledge. Every time Alec makes a joke like this it proves to me that I'm in the right place.
I know, right? You just want to go and click to a higher tier.
It made you question whether you needed to double it?
I mean no effort november was on the menu, so you got what you ordered I guess :P
My grandparents have lights like these and I LOVED them as a kid and still do. Glad to see they are made still.
My mom loves bubble lights. Every year our Christmas tree was adorned with them, and the same set lasted for decades. When they finally burned out, finding replacements was a nightmare, but luckily I was able to score some on ebay on the cheap. And nowadays, I have a set of bubble lights for my own Christmas tree.
Look at small, independent hardware stores. This is where I have found the most bubble lights.
As a Wisconsinite, the Menard’s gag definitely made the video for me. Keep up the amazingly entertaining and educational work!
Agreed, having been a 10 y/o boy it didn’t take long to turn into “Save big money at my na(r)ds”
Meanwhile, in Europe: Actual candles.
🔥 omg 😳 🔥
the best way to 'light up' a Christmas tree.
To be fair, they are not left burning unattended and a fire extinguisher is kept close (or at least a bucket of water). It could be argued that unattended incandescent bulbs are more dangerous.
Never seen them myself and I don't think anyone over here would still try that after a hotel once burned down after a candle on a nearby table lit up a tree during a new years eve party.
@@dr.eldontyrell-rosen926 Is this a joke or are you really surprised to hear that? I know the US only from t.v. shows and films and now that I think of it, I think I've never seen a (fictional) US American have actual candles burning on their tree.
"this website I found"
>Wikipedia screengrab
never change
No Effort November, using Wikipedia as a source. Tracks.
Thanks for doing this video. I first saw these lights when I was a little boy in the 1950's. My grandparents had them and I was totally fascinated by these lights. We have these lights today to relive that wonderful childhood memory.
"I, a Midwesterner, obtained these at--"
and in that moment, the sound of banjos mysteriously filled my mind
Like Dionysus enchanting sailors with the sound of flutes, except Midwestern
If you've never shopped at Menards, you'll never know what its like to save big money
Fun fact, I knew he was going to say Menards before he said it. Because I am also a midwesterner.
@Wandy Wexler Weslon The Menards jingle features a banjo. Get wrecked.
Banjos are too far south for us in the Midwest. We play guitars and basses.
I really appreciate the effort you put into captioning the videos, even in "No Effort November". It makes it much easier for me to understand!
I imagine he reused the script and timings from a teleprompter, but hey, that's video editing/ cinematography for you.
"This website I found..."
_Wikipedia_
I lol'd
Fun thing is, many years ago, I actually did accidentally find Wikipedia for the first time, before it was so well known as it is today. And it was amazing how much useless knowledge I could spout and tell people "there's an awesome website I found that is like an encyclopedia, and you can help write the articles!"
These lights will always remind me of being at my grandmother’s house around the holidays.
"They were standing together on the countertop and cheerfully wished me a good morning. And that could only mean one thing," LSD!
Could you imagine him on LSD... Or even high? He's already inordinately fascinated by seemingly mundane things. It would be like double rainbow, but about a toaster.
Now that I mention it... I'd watch that
I knew a friend who swore, under the influence, that condiments in the fridge were dancing and singing la cucaracha to him.
@@travcollier Didn't he already do that?
Would that be Captain Disillusion?
"He probably just wanted to make a thing..."
That thing being money!
"And this is them!"
The menards references are appreciated greatly. Made 3 trips on friday to get my parents house decorated in festivus lights
Means bugger-all to us on the other side of the Thank God It's There Ocean though ...
@Pennsylvania _Mike that was in English - the clue's in the name....
"The Advent of electric lighting" - that's a good christmas pun.
Absolutly never heard of them before... interessting
Same, is this just something that isn't common in Europe?
I'm in the US and never heard of them. And I'm 35 not some young guy.
I'm 37, and we had them on the tree every year when I was growing up in Oregon.
@@willlllllllllllllllllll I'm am american and this video is the first time I've ever heard of them. Could be a Midwest specific thing, or they're just a thing of the past at this point.
Never seen these in the UK.
Thank you for adding captions to all your videos!!
I'm not deaf but I still like having them on, so thank you!
We had bubble lights (among other decorations) on our Christmas tree in Rochester NY in the late 1950s. They were cool.
This drifted ever so closely to being an ad for Mendards lmao
Save big money at...
Have you ever been to a Menards and then not talked about it? It's like a circus full of wonderful, weird shit.
0:17 - I am so delightfully angry right now. You know the "don't laugh, it'll only encourage him" grimace? Yeah, that one.
If you were following his Twitter, you'd have come prepared!
@@redyau_ My decision to stay off of Twitter has finally paid off!
Exactly how I felt.
I bet you didn't see that cumin.
@@syd.a.m 🙄 Please, no more pun-ishment! 😎
I had an aunt who had a tabletop tree with bubble lamps that screwed directly into the branches. She finally gave up,on it in the late 80s when it got harder to buy the bulbs locally.
The "Seasonings' greetings" joke made me guffaw loudly. Brilliant! Thank you for showing us these! I've never seen them before.
I love the theme song of this channel. It reminds me of shopping at the mall with my mom in the 80s (in the best way possible).
I absolutely love these types of lights. My Grandmother's second Christmas tree used to always be covered in them, love you Grandma
Thanks for this blast from the past! Growing up in the ‘70s we had these on our tree for sure. I had no idea they are still in production. Enjoy!
You do recall some culture's traditions of putting lit candles in Christmas trees? No way that could be dangerous!
But they are pretty. I have no idea what we were thinking.
That's actually why electric Christmas lights were invented.
“Some”? More like everyone in Europe. Tho the practice came from the Norse combined with the invectus sol practices, that the mid (around the Lutheran reformation) Christian church adopted.
Well, originally, we just burn the whole tree and it is supposed to last the whole winter season.
yes, generally the same cultures that build their houses from nice and flammable wood.
Ah yes, I was waiting for the annual holiday light rant from Technology Connections.
if you watch Home Alone 2, there is a scene when they are in the auditorium in which you can see a Christmas tree full of bubble lights
I was about to say this
And Donald Trump!
@@ericw357 if you watch on Netflix they cut Donald trump out 😂
@@LilnutSox No kidding! Was watching it 2 nights ago w/the kids (3 and 5) on Disney+ and I jumped up and shouted "holy shit that was Donald Trump!" The wife was not pleased.
They are also in the end of “A Christmas story” I think.
I love bubble lights! These are really different from the ones I had as a kid in the 80s, which actually did have serviceable parts. They were smaller, the glass tubes were separate, and the bulb was a normal Christmas light. They basically took a normal string of lights and clipped the little plastic base around them and then slid the glass tubes into the base. You could sometimes get the base to clip around other random lights on the tree and space them out more if the lights were the right shape. They didn’t pop or make much noise either. I wish we still had those types of bubble lights!
If you look hard enough this type can still be found. I have found them at random craft and hardware stores.
I too grew up with these and they were smaller back then (60's). They did make the same bubbling sound as the larger ones. I'll have to see if I can find them and look at the construction. I don't think they could come apart. Great memories. ❤
"Electric lights on cost-cut strings," still safer than burning sticks of grease (candles).
"...these are a few of my favorite things."
Yeah, I have a photo of my grandparets and christmas tree decorated with burning candles. I still have small candle holders with a clip and pointy thing where you stick candles.
My mom spent the first eleven or twelve years of her life on a farm without electricity (born in 1933). She told me that they put candles on Christmas trees, but would only keep them lit for a few minutes at a time, with buckets of water ready to douse the tree if it caught fire.
You mean to tell me that my Christmas tree spontaneously bursting into flames isn't supposed to be a normal part of the season?
The random fire brigade always brings the family closer together
it was always that way on the Simson's
1:07 I was shook when I didn't hear the VSauce theme start playing
Or does it?
@@alessandrogrillo1126 🎵 Doooo--
Bubble lights were the highlight of my Grandparent's Christmas tree each year. It was the only place I ever saw them - ever. I was fascinated by the bubbles, though the base would get pretty hot as far as I couls tell.
Hey we have these on our tree! Same set since the early 2000s, they all still work. I had always assumed they were full of water, but had never bothered to actually check. Can't wait to see this year's holiday special videos.
In nearly 40 years alive I don't think I ever heard these existed until now.
I'll take that and raise yer to 55 !
I gotta reduce that by 13, but I'll offer you a different continent instead.
I seen them for the first time a couple seasons ago at a local donut shop tree.
Lol we had them when I was a kid at like 10.
"We need to talk about the way 'Fig' is stylized here" : Why not but no word about the phallic shape of the bulb in the patent?
LOL! The drawings did resemble some unnecessary restroom graffiti I'd seen once.....
The indent at the top is for a wire hook to wrap around and hold the tube vertical. The originals shipped with a black soft iron branch hook. The screw socket base had a spring clip to clamp on branches. If not for the wire hook at the top there was little chance getting the tubes vertical. Those old lights only tolerated a few degrees off vertical and each bulb was different. After a few installs you got to know how much off vertical each tube could tolerate. Many the time I cut a notch in a branch to get the clip and hook correctly oriented. Changing to soft plastic bases with intergal branch hooks from hard Bakeolite and adding "salt" instead the round metallic heat concentrators made hanging the lights much easier
I'm Australian, so I had never seen lights like until about a decade ago when I saw some RUclips videos about them and ended up importing a few boxes from the US, along with a 300W 240-110V stepdown transformer. I also bought a couple of boxes of the potion bottle ones from ThinkGeek when that was still a thing. I love that noise they make as they first 'explode' into bubbles after powering on.
You should cover an "oil rain" lamp, I was just thinking about how weird those things were.
My grandfather had one of these. As a kid, it was *so* cool.
Do you mean those old ass lamps with the tiny drops of oil sliding down what looked like fishing line? Grandparents had a couple of those.
my family had a like, Greek garden-themed one? it was so cool but so gross cause the strings would collect dust
They are my fav lights! Thanks for doing a show on them. They got Really hard to find from the late 90's until recently and yeah, they are pretty expensive as far as lights go. Consider them more as entertainment than lighting and that helps take out some of the sting!
I'm going to start referring to my Christmas tree as a "kindling cone."
My stepdad mentioned these lights at dinner so naturally I had to tell everyone about your awesome channel and now a bunch of my family is subscribed!
I remember these and it's so cool to see an explanation of their inner workings... and to learn that they're for sale again some places. 🎄💡☺️
I had been stocking up on them over the years :) i love them.
Good to see you over this way - always enjoyed watching your stuff
@@grumpysteelman thanks! I always enjoy watching Alec's videos very much :)
Perfect timing! I was literally just telling a partner about having these as a kid a few days ago, and she didn't believe they were real.
My parents had these when I was growing up and they still do. Most of the bulbs are still going. Some light up but don't bubble anymore.
I'm so glad to see these! Grew up with them and they're by far my favorite light!
It's the most wonderful thyme of the year so I wish you a Rosemary Christmas.
Sage advice!
@@allanrichardson1468 Thyme for both of you to go!
@@MonkeyJedi99 Yes, keep them at bay.
Now you're just trying to curry favor.
"Low Effort November"
Uses Wikipedia as a source
The name checks out.
There were a variation of this that was modular and worked off the smaller bulbs. Source: a favored ornament from my childhood.
1:09 - Well, it's probably safer than having actual _lit candles_ in a Christmas tree...
RIGHT?!
Well, in the really olde days this was done. Not sure what the safety/disaster record was but, some research could reveal some answers. (The Germans may still, in some areas.)
Id rather have a wax candle that I can put out instead of Boiling chemical liquid in a fragile vial.
@@jamesmiller4184 My familiy still does it that way. Though we only light the candles once or twice. Now we use a little tree in a pot that we reuse every year. An alive tree is obviously less dangerous.
@@jonaslinter my family does that as well In addition to the electric lights. Though there have been years were we didn't light the candles once.
i love how the list was made using both letters and numbers, "A... and 2..." 8D
A Mad About You reference I believe.
@@davidbarmann Or Home Alone, where Buzz is listing the various reasons it's no big deal Kevin got left at home. Because of this scene I use "A," "2," and "D" whenever I can for three-item lists. ruclips.net/video/gVGbDEAnDyo/видео.html
I actually adore bubble lights... They make me so happy
"As a midwesterner, I obtained them at--say it with me"
MEIJE-
"MENARDS!"
oh
"something something rebate"
HAHAH YEAH
I'm impressed that they did the rebate for so long this year... Started working there six months ago
Save big money at man's-nards.
Is that how midwesterners pronounce "Amazon"?
@@EnigmaticLucas there's Meijer in the Midwest too.
@@IceBergGeo Meijer is midwestern. Its from Michigan
I had a version of these that slipped onto mini lights when I was a kid! They were so cool! I wish I still had them. not sure if they used the same liquid or not, but they were a very similar design, just with essentially a replaceable bulb as they just friction fit on a standard mini light socket.
My Grandparents had a set of these that they owned for a long time. I remember me and my siblings watching them all over the tree waiting for one to just pop and start bubbling, but in their final few years less and less of them worked. They lit up, but wouldn't ever start to bubble.
Just for memory's sake I am tempted to go out and pick up a set
Might I just add, I'm so glad to have found this channel! It's the channel I never knew I needed! 😂 My day is not started until I've watched at last one video from you!
"Seasoning's Greetings!" - would you call that our "pun"ishment?
"Still, slightly safer certainly seems separate."
Imagine my disappointment when I didn't see any outtakes. Either well done or well hidden.
I have fond memories of these being on the tree at one of my grandparents homes. I grew up in the 80, so well past their heyday, but that set of grandparents was known for being especially frugal, so it doesn't surprise me that they're a throwback from even earlier.
Growing up we had a set of mini bubble lights that just slipped over a standard miniature Christmas light. I'll have to root around next time I'm at my parents house to see if they're still around.
0:01 Most effort for the least payoff joke? Welcome to the wonderfully nerdy humor of Technology Connections!
I want this man to travel in time and be my teacher of every subject back in high school days. Cheers.
These had a random mini comeback in the 90s for about one Christmas. My aunt got a set then and still uses them on her tree. I gotta check this year how many (if any) still bubble.
If you pull the tube out of the mini ones and shake them sometimes they will start to bubble again.
This may be the first time I've heard someone saying "metric degrees" 😄
I was half expecting him to follow up with "Imperial degrees".
As a Brit who grew up in the days when much of the world was still pink (at least on the map...), I love the way Yanks still call things 'Imperial'!
Degrees of Freedom.