Mat's Tat - distracting novelties

What the heck's that? That was not on my nose yesterday. Uh. Oh, all right. Um today we're going to take a look at three different items in one video. These are devices that were suggested to me as potential things that I could put on the shelf behind me. You know, to fit in with the other stuff I've got that kind of distracts you away from this crumbling disaster here. So, in the past I've featured the lava lamp, the volcano lamps, the wave machine, and following those videos quite a few people suggested that I should take a look at different things. These are the three most common suggestions. So, what we have here is something that I thought probably wasn't look very good on camera, but I got it so we can find out. Uh this which I had a version of many years ago, but I don't know what happened to it. And then this which is a bit of a favorite of the Borg on Star Trek the Next Generation. I think some people will know exactly what this is already, but we're going to take a look at all three of these now. So, let's get on with it. Okay, so first item, bit of a classic. It is the plasma ball lamp. Yeah, a load of people suggested this. In fact, it got more suggestions than anything else. The reason I've discounted these in the past is because I don't think this will show up very well on camera given that I've got a load of studio lights pointing at me. I'm pretty sure you won't be able to see anything going on inside one of these. I seem to remember them always being demonstrated in a dark section at the back of a shop. And it's pretty much the opposite conditions where I am, but we'll find out. Sometimes these things have a black plastic half shell on the back of them to improve the effect, but still I don't think it would help in this situation, but we'll have a go. So, on the side here you can see this one runs off 12 volts. It's an 8-in ball. You can get all sorts of different sizes. I have to get things that are quite large so that they show up on camera again. And this is just obviously made in China. Available in all sorts of different countries. There's nothing particularly special about this one. It's just the one that I could get hold of. So, let's have a look at it. I noticed it said that was a glass sphere. I'd imagine it's plastic, but we'll find out. It's upside down. Um there's a transformer. Let's get this out of here. Oh, it is glass. Oh. Well, I'm glad it survived. Okay, so there's not much to do with this, is there? You're just going to plug it in and switch it on. So, I think we'll do exactly that. The Fun. What a brilliant name. So, I've got my power socket here. I notice of course there is no cowling on this particular one, so we'll see what happens here. Oh, it is on. Yeah, okay. Uh is it listening to my voice? I think it is, isn't it? Oh, yeah, there we are. On off audio. Right, we're on. There we go. So, that's continuously on there. Uh let's turn it that way around. Well, can you see that very well? I mean Yeah, I mean they're all right to play around with, but I just don't think they're a kind of thing that would looks good on a display. But I've got it against a black background there. You can barely see the stuff that's going on inside. Let's just turn all the lights off in here. Right, now that's looking a bit better. I've still got a light on in the corner, so let me turn that off. Yeah, now you see that looks good. But as you can imagine, I don't film the videos in total darkness. But still, yeah, it's nice, isn't it? In the darkness. And you can't see the stupid The Fun thing on the bottom, either. But uh yeah, I'm afraid as far as putting this on the shelf behind me, it's a bit of a dud. Because you stick all the lights on and there's nothing to see. Got to be careful it don't fall off. I've just stretched the wire across. What do you think of that? Yeah. — [sighs and gasps] — I'm going to put a bit of black stuff on the back of it just to see if it looks any better, but I think it's failed its audition. Oh, here we go. I've got a cleaning cloth. Let's stick that up there. Feel like I'm about to do a magic trick and make it disappear. Okay, um what do you think of that now? Yeah. Not saying there's anything wrong with them, but as a thing to put on the back here, nah. Okay, number one, fail. Let's move on. Okay, so the next one is a glitter lamp. Now, this is as a response to the fact that lava lamps take a while to heat up, and whilst they're doing that, there's not an awful lot going on. You might have noticed the one behind me wasn't switched on. That's because I forgot. With this, if I was just to switch it on now in perhaps 15 minutes, I'd imagine, the glitter will start to move around and produce some kind of an effect. Now, I had a glitter lamp when I was a lot younger, and I seem to remember it

having three different colored lights in it, and the glitter was silver, and as it moved around there, glitter changed colors as it hit the different lights and reflected it. I can't find one like that now. All I can find is ones that have exactly the same color all the way through, or this one which was about the closest I could get because it has different colored glitter in it. So, at least I'm going to get some kind of an effect. We'll have a look. Now, I'm sure some people will want to know how much I paid for these things. If I can find that information, I'll put it on the screen, but bearing in mind there's so many different companies making these things, and the price is really been almost nothing. This thing's getting smaller as I get inside here. It was a nice big container, but uh as you can see, my arm is reaching in here quite a long way without getting anything out. Uh there we go. It is multi-colored. Yeah, it looks pretty good that. See, it's already moving around. So, it should get going pretty quickly, this thing. Um This is a UK model, rather obviously. And uh usual thing. Pop it in the base, stick a cap on it. You've got an on off switch on the power cable. Just like your typical lava lamp, this thing is aluminum, I think. Got a kind of felt base on it, which is a bit slidy, which is not the best idea. The bulb isn't already in here. Uh caution, to reduce the risk of fire, use 30 W type R39 lamp. Right, now it did mention on the box that you could use these for up to 10 hours. Remember the Mathmos lava lamps were 6 hours. Right, so let's just pop that on there. Notice how the bottle has been purpose-made for this. Not just any old bottle. It's got that bit there that just slides in and keeps it level. Okay, so top on. All right, so let's plug it in. Okay. Fingers crossed something's going to happen when I flip this switch. There we go. You can see it's definitely circulating the glitter around already due to the heat. So, it gets up and running really very quickly. What I'm going to do though is leave this running for the rest of the evening just so it can get settled down. And then tomorrow I'm going to switch it on when I start recording the third item, and we'll see what this looks like on the shelf behind me, and see whether it earns a place there. It's the next day, and I haven't turned the backdrop on yet. So, the lava lamp isn't on, either. Let me just turn the backdrop on first, and that's how I do things. I've got it all wired up to a plug. So, the idea is I can just sit down here. That'll start flashing. I've got to turn that off. That thing's a little bit noisy to start with, but it calms down. Right, so everything's on apart from the lava lamp, all right? So, the reason I mentioned this is because the idea is I just sit down here, I turn it all on, and I can start recording. I don't have to sort of plan ahead. The lava lamp is a bit of an exception to that because if I now say to turn the lava lamp on, if I'm not going to do the speech thing because if I do, it'll turn on everyone's lava lamp on in the world, even people that don't have them. So, let me try and find the button for it. That's it, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah, that is that's now on. I've put a dark lava on there because it wasn't showing up very well with the green one on the camera, even though it looks better in person. Just the exposure. Right, okay, so that is now on. So, at the same time I'm now going to um put this thing on. Right, so let's just pop that up on here. All right, and switch that on. Okay. So, both of those are now on. All right, it's all going up to the top. I didn't realize it did that. Okay, I'd be interested to see when that settles down, won't it? Because that's the idea. I could just sit down here and say like go, and everything's on, and then I can start recording. So, we'll see how long that takes to start being normal. I can see it's heated up at the bottom. So, yeah, uh at the moment it is well, 12:25 it's just gone. Not where you are, unless it is by coincidence, but that's just so I can tell you how long before this thing starts looking normal. In the meantime, let's take a look at this. This is the final one. So, let's bring the camera around this way and have a look. This is uh prop from numerous science fiction TV shows, but uh especially the thing that sat above the Is it Borg pods or something? It's a long time since I saw the Star Trek Next Generation episodes with these things in them. I mean, it was when they first went out on TV, so it was a long time ago. Right, so the blue one is the traditional one that everyone recognizes. I think I might have gone with a different color. Might have picked that one. So, this is a large one. This is a 12-in. same size as a record or one of

those vinyls things and table top stand 12 volt power adapter. Okay, let's get inside here. I can't remember where I got this one from. I might have imported this from the US, you know. I'll put all the information on the screen. It's easiest thing for me to do because I can go through my emails and try and find it. Right, so let's hope this one works then. The ones from the 1990s are really quite expensive, but people are making these again now. So, there's no need to pay up for one of those old ones. Just get one of the new ones that's uh a lot cheaper. Now, again, this is glass. So, let me just cut around this. I'll spare you the details and we'll come back once I've got into here. Right, I think that's it. Okay, so yes, it's in one piece. This might be for the US if it is a import. Oh, yeah. There we go. So, what voltage is that? 100 to 240. Okay, so I just put that in a travel adapter. I'll have one of those here somewhere. This looks quite well-made really, this one. Feels solid. I'm trying to figure out if there's like a plastic cover on this that I'm supposed to peel off or if I'm just supposed to leave it like this cuz I can see Can you see that? Kind of misty-ness. Kind of wonder if you're supposed to peel at this or just leave it. Mhm. All right. So, anyway, on the back on off and sound. So, it's like the plasma ball we had. So, we'll be using it in the on position. Power goes in there. This whole thing at the back is all plastic. And uh there's my stand. Is that multiple positions? Yeah. Okay, that's pretty good. I mean, it it feels like you could break it, but uh I think the message is try not to break it. So, there you go. It would just sit on your counter like so. I'm going to have to find an adapter now. Just give me a moment. Success. Right, okay. So, here we go. Let's put this thing on and see exactly what it does. I think this one might be the best candidate for something to go on the shelf behind me. The only concern I've got is that it could be really annoying and distracting. I mean, you want things that kind of look interesting, but don't do everyone's head in. So, let's find out if this fits the bill. I think it moves around with your finger, doesn't it? Yeah. Much the same as the plasma ball. It is a plasma disc. I don't think you can peel that off. I think it's supposed to look like that. Yeah, it's like two pieces of glass sandwiched together with this plasma disc thing in the middle of it. Mhm. Slightly underwhelmed really. But uh I did get the blue one, didn't I? Let's just turn it into the sound position. Okay, so now it should be listening to me. Hello. Yeah, no, you have to be really loud. Yeah, it's um not much use is it? Cuz I'll be sitting away talking to a lavalier mic. I'll have that behind me and it's going to be doing that. So, no, that's no use at all. I I'd suggest it's not much use unless you've got a really loud music system going either. It's perhaps calibrated a bit too low. But like that, is that any good? Well, we'll put it on the shelf. It is 12:33, so it hasn't taken us very long to look at that and we'll see how the other things getting on as well. And then you can judge which of these you think is the best. Okay, so what do you reckon? I've just put them up there temporarily. That's not where they'd stay if they were staying there, but I don't think they're all staying there. I wonder if any of them are. I mean, what do you think? What do you think is the best one of these to go behind me somewhere here on the shelf? I think that one, the plasma ball, that's probably the least likely to earn a place up there. It's just too pasty. The glitter lamp, well, you can see there it's up and running well, but I do think the glitter's a little bit too fine to show up at that distance on a camera. This thing might be a bit too manic. But then again the lava lamp is still unlikely to show any signs of life for perhaps another hour or so yet. So, these all turn on immediately. Let me know in the comments which one you think's the best. Although, I mean, if you've got better things to be doing with your life, I don't blame you. But if there's one that you particularly wouldn't want me to put behind me, let me know and I'll keep it out of it. I'm not sure myself. I really I'm not. Uh Uh that glitter one could perhaps go down here somewhere, couldn't it? I'm running out of plug sockets as well. That's another issue. I don't really want to sacrifice any of the other devices, but um there you go. That was three bits of tat that people asked me to take a look at now. I quite enjoyed doing that. It was a nice break. It was like easy because often I get things that are broken and need to be messed around with or things that have got so many fine details that

whenever you miss something out, people complain about it or say you said that wrong. You didn't You forgot to say this. That's a classic. You forgot even though you It was never in your mind to ever say it, but you know. So, this is easy. You just gets to out of the box and say, "Yeah, here's some rubbish. " There you go. So, I'm going to do another one. I heard the chorus of boos then. But the reason is I'm having a bit of a break. I'm going away for a couple of days and the only way I'm going to get a video out in the next week or so would be to do another one of these. And besides which, I've got three more things stacking up. Which is perfect. So, if we call this Matt's tat one that'll be Matt's tat two. Do you get it? Tat two. Anyway, I think that's it for the moment. As always, thanks for watching.