This time - can tech help me get bigger muscles? Is it wrong to want a radio controlled car? Can you silence my noisy dog? First vinyl, now cassette. That's mad! What's the best way to spy on my friends? Can an app sort my outfit?
Read on!
I want bigger muscles. Can tech help me out?
Guru's 28-inch pythons are the product of advanced cyber-engineering, but you'll likely be better off with a combination of motivation, nutrition, and some good old-fashioned cheating. First, get a handle on your love handles with Sequoia Fitness's MetaCal Body Fat Caliper (£5), a metal torture device designed to pinch your fl ab and humiliate you. When you've stopped crying, grab a set of high-end BioElectrical Impedance analysis scales like Tanita's RD-901 (£135), which records and uploads your gruesome body composition to Tanita's Health Planet app.
Remember to ignore all mentions of BMI, as you're aiming for a mass in advance of the average human. Now to diet. The key to building one's muscles is consuming huge amounts of protein and any number of mystical substances with silly names. So pick up some UltraMutant+++ and mix it up in a PROMiXX Vortex Mixer (£19), a battery-powered concoction spinner which should help to reduce the amount of disgusting sediment.
On the odd occasion that you eat actual food you'll want to be eating 'clean', so pick up a ten-portion George Foreman Entertaining Grill (£100) and watch the grease dribble off your meat. The stomach-churning clean-up should help you stay nice and cut. With that sorted, you're probably gasping to lift something heavy. The Beast Sensor (£200) counts your sets and reps, and measures just how much unhinged aggression you're pouring into your training regime.
Alternatively, the Bar Sensei (£275) clangs onto your hardware and provides live feedback to help keep your form solid. If all that sounds like too much hard work, try some under-shirt deception. Funkybod's muscle enhancing top (£50) provides sculpted pecs and optional bicep-falsery perfect for both impressing the opposite sex and providing disappointment at the most critical of times. It's probably better to sweat your way though the iron.
Can an app sort my outfit?
GaGu's daily wears – manly plaid, jeans, fancy anoraks – all seem to match either through an innate fashion sense or mere chance: you may not be so lucky. Try, in that case, Closet+. It's an iOS app that you can fi ll with pictures of your garments and then play dress up to your heart's content. It doesn't directly tell you if those slacks go with that shirt (they don't) but at least you'll be able to see them together without having to face the mirror, and since it enables you to plan outfits in advance you can make sure your servants are activating the washing machine sufficiently so that you don't look like a one-outfit hobo.
Is it wrong to want a radio controlled car?
If you are 12 years old, reader, then GaGu completely appreciates the desire to fi re a stupid four-wheeled thing around your living room rather than humorously endangering the lives of others with the much-cooler blades of a careening quadcopter. But no. I suspect you're older than that, so learn this: RC cars are, in essence, really, really pointless. But wait! You knew there would be more. There are at least some RC cars out there which Guru does not wish to immediately stamp on and crush into a billion even-more-pointless bits. If you must tit about like a 1/10 scale Nigel Mansell, you will fail to heed this list of don'ts at your peril.
Don't buy one from a toy shop. Guru has already determined that you are no child. Think that buying a Lamborghini Aventador LP700 (£30) will get you a reasonable facsimile of the real thing? Really? Don't be so bloody stupid. Get yourself to a specialist retailer run by a super-nerd on the internet and buy one from there.
Don't expect to just buy an RC car, because buying a good one means you'll be buying a fast one, and buying a fast one means crashing a fast one repeatedly until it breaks. You'll need to stock up on spare axles and suspension bushes, and buy a huge pile of environment-destroying lithium batteries in order to keep it running. Don't jump into nitro-fuelled cars immediately. Oh, yes, GaGu is familiar with the desire to harness little explosions in the pursuit of power, but there is such a thing as too much juice.
Proper engines, and the commitment to tuning and intricate repair that they demand, are not for beginners. You will, possibly literally, get your fingers burned. And one final don't: don't expect a happy ending. You'll either pump a load of money into something that you barely touch, or you'll be dragged into a never-ending cycle of upgrades, tuning, club meets and unmitigated spending. GaGu, as ever, accepts no responsibility whatsoever for ruined relationships or bank balances.
My noisy dog is doing my head in! Can you sort it out?
Now, although you might think GaGu something of a sadist, and you'd be right, he reserves the shock collars for reducing the barks and yelps of the hired help. The treasured trio of hounds – Chompsky, Teeth and Lord Fuzzlesworth – have in fact been whipped into shape with a selection of far more boring products.
The BarkStopper Ultrasonic (£21) gives all beasts within a 50m radius a high-frequency ear-blast whenever you press a button (which is fi ne until the kids get hold of it). So, your noisy pooch should quickly get the message – as will your neighbours' dogs (the ultrasonic waves can travel through hedges and fences) – and your dog whispering antics will go unnoticed. You could also do worse than sticking a PetSafe Deluxe Outdoor Bark Control (£65) in the rear courtyard. It's shaped like an innocuous bird feeder – great for infuriating the local feathered population – and drops mad tweets when it detects an anti-social mutt. That'll learn 'em.
First vinyl, now cassette? That's mad!
Perhaps you're the mad one: let GaGu hurl some truth your way. Cassettes are actually not as bad as all that. Yes, Types I (Ferrous) and II (Chrome) are abominations, and sadly that's what you'll get if you buy one of those awfully hip commercial albums. But Type IV (Metal) gives some decent audio performance if you're stupid enough to pay upwards of £10 each for 90-minute blanks on eBay. GaGu, ever the trendsetter, has decided to get ahead of the retro curve and currently only listens to artisanal MiniDiscs through a plastic Midi Hi-Fi system with Bass Boost turned to 12, all the while eating 'classic' breakfast cereals from at least 15 years ago. The crunch helps add a bit of treble.
What's the best way to spy on my friends, GaGu?
Er, don't? GaGu's not entirely sure what you're up to, but any gadget with 'spy' in its title might as well have 'crap' in its title instead. Take the CrapShades Hidden Cam Glasses (£45, goo.gl/ MWGjPV), a pair of sunglasses with inexplicably bulky arms which use an outdated sensor to capture blurry video. You could spend more, but the results don't get much better. There are hidden cameras you can stuff in soft toys, silly pen cameras, keyring cameras: all manner of tosh created in the name of wringing money out of dishonesty. If you suspect something's up, just hide in a cupboard or something.
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