Original subtitles

Life hacks are shortcuts designed to make your life easier. This show is

to help you, not hurt you. So hack at your own risk.

Imagine a world without Popper's security.

Where things like this play out night after night. Protect yourself with

Popper's security.

Call today and one of our experts will perform the simple installation.

And adorable little intruders will be scared off by a loud bang.

Popper's Home Security.

Delivering the most bang for your buck.

Tonight on Hack My Life, we've got hacks for everything, including... Hacks that

will make you want to do your house chores.

Hacks to shine your shoes.

And hacks that claim to turn cheap wine into the good stuff.

Plus, a slew of other surprising hacks, all leading up to our incredible Hack of

the Week.

This is Hack My Life.

You ever found yourself in the middle of a parking garage or searching for your

car? Where is my car?

There it is. There's a hack that increases the distance that your key

actually find your car. And all it requires is your skull.

Yeah. Holding your key to your chin, your skull becomes an amplifier for the

signal, allowing you to find your car further away. Today, we're going to find

out if it's hack or whack.

To start, I've got a tape measure.

Convenient. I have a key and a skull. So first to test it, we're going to go the

conventional way and just see how far we can get from the car using nothing but

the key.

It still works from this distance.

Yeah, what are we at? We're about 20 feet?

70 feet -ish. Yep, still good. We're about 80.

Okay. Oh, oh.

Yes, it works out there. It does not work here.

So I think we call this time of death.

Okay. 83 feet. Hold on.

It totally worked.

I can hear a tumor forming, I think. Yeah, seriously. Hold on. I just forgot

childhood. It's gone. I locked it, but the remote still worked.

Back it up. Back it up.

Oh, when did it cut out? Boom. Yeah, and it doesn't work. I mean, it works at

143, so I'd say we got from 83 to 143. Yeah, 60 feet. 60 feet. It gave you 60

feet of range.

The noggin works, my friends. This is hack.

It's a hack. It worked.

According to the interwebs, there are some common household hacks for shining

shoes. And today, we've got some professional shoe shiners who are going

us put them to the test. In this Hack vs.

Hack, these will be your new tools of the trade.

We've got some vegetable oil.

We've got some bananas.

Do you guys think you could get some shoes shiny with these objects?

Well, we're going to find out.

Let's commence with the shining.

Yeah. Vegetable oil, I have got to see.

You're going to shine my shoes or cook them?

I have one concern. The banana scent.

Right. You're going to smell like a produce department.

Yeah. Are you surprised that that looks shiny so quick?

I am, yes. It's surpassing expectations.

All right. How are we looking over here, man?

Not good. This is going to kill the shoe.

The surface of the shoe is going to be dull. This will never get a shine unless

I clean that off and use some of that oil.

So you think whatever is in that banana that is giving us a little bit of polish

is also dulling it as well? Yes.

Time for the moment of truth.

Let's see how these shoes stack up next to my professional, well -oiled polish.

The banana peel?

Not so good.

There's a little bit of shine there, but I can see...

The banana residue, I can feel it. It's gritty. That's not something I would

recommend. Now, the vegetable oil, the polish looks about the same. Both shoes

are equally shiny. It actually feels just like my polish. So I'd say that's

clear winner.

If you absolutely have to hack your shoes at home, reach for the vegetable

and just eat the banana.

Let me tell you about my friend Glass Cleaner. It's also a shoe cleaner. You

some leather kicks. You've been walking around. Things are getting dirty.

A couple spritzes, a little rag.

Look at how shiny that is. I can see your future. It's bright, my friend.

I need to take my pills with me everywhere I go, but I hate lugging

clunky bottles. Now what? No problem. Just stow pills in your contact lens

But I need to take out my contact lenses, and now there are pills in my

case. Now what?

Settle down. Use creamer containers to store your lenses.

I just dumped out creamer to put my contact lenses into.

Now my coffee's going to taste awful.

Now what?

All right, I got this. Just toss salt on the beans before brewing to make your

coffee taste better.

Everyone keeps flipping on my icy sidewalk because I used up all the salt

delicious coffee.

Now what? No worries.

Just throw down some kitty litter to give some traction to an icy sidewalk.

Well, let's just say I even have a cat. I don't. All the kitty litter's out on

the sidewalk and the cat's peeing on the floor.

Now what?

Okay, relax.

Just make a mix of water, white vinegar, baking soda, hydrogen peroxide, and

soap to get rid of cat urine odors.

Great, great. Still not going to get a cat.

Not happening.

Sometimes an item is so useful, it ascends into the pantheon of great

tools. This week's Hack All -Star will undeniably be celebrated for years to

come. The toilet paper roll.

Feed multiple power cords through a toilet paper roll to keep them from

tangled. All -Star.

Cut a two -inch slit in the side of an empty roll.

Put two pins in the bottom and enjoy sweet tunes on your new speaker system.

All -Star.

Make a biodegradable mini planter by filling three quarters of the roll with

soil, adding seed, and topping it off.

All the time.

Fill an empty roll with old dryer lint to easily light a campfire.

All the time.

Use several upright rolls to keep your desk drawers organized.

Fair warning, though. You might become that guy with the toilet paper rolls and

a desk.

All the time.

And finally, keep a kid occupied for hours by telling them the rolls are

binoculars. Kids will believe anything.

Here's to you, toilet paper roll.

Welcome to the club.

Coming up, save hundreds of dollars on cleaning supplies.

And we show you how to hack hours off your weekend chores.

Plus, which hack can stop this from happening? Keep it here for more Hack My

Life.

Living with some people can be pure hell. To protect yourself, you need a

line of defense against the cheap roommate.

The cheap roommate is such a penny pincher. She refuses to pay the electric

even though it's her month.

To keep yourself out of the dark, hack some crayons into candles.

First, melt the flat end and stick it to a sheet of aluminum foil.

Then, set fire to the paper surrounding the tip. It'll burn for hours, just like

your rage.

The cheap roommate doesn't buy her own DVDs. No, she just borrows yours. And

then never gives them back.

You can make sure they don't go missing forever by taking a photo of her holding

everything she takes. You know, as a friendly reminder.

The cheap roommate uses your razor instead of buying her own, leaving you

of grossed out and with a very dull shave.

Well, instead of buying a new one, just swipe your razor over a pair of jeans

several times in both directions.

The tough thread rubs out Nick and sharpens the blaze.

And finally, the cheap roommate never picks up more duster sheets, even though

it's been her turn since 2012.

To hack your own, just take an old t -shirt or a rag and cut it to fit your

Sorry, we don't have a hack to make her use.

But now you can afford to hire someone else to clean because you just saved a

ton of money with our hack line of defense against a cheap roommate.

You ever open a can of soda or beer and this happens?

You can tap the top of a can and that will stop it from exploding. Yeah, but

we're going to see how far we can push this hack before it literally blows up

our face.

This calls for a hack experiment.

Oh, look, I'm at my favorite poncho party and my hands are not gripping

I need to fix that.

Hey, Brooke, beer me, bro. Gonna beer you, bro? Oh.

But wait, now I don't have a beer party file. There you go. Okay.

Both tosses were equally disturbing.

You've got to give it several taps around the top, a couple flicks around

side. Open slowly. Give the carbonation a chance to come out. Here we go. You

ready? Okay.

All right. Three, two, brew.

Oh. That's nothing.

Beautiful. Guys, mission accomplished.

The hack works.

Tap your can. We're done.

No, no, no. We better step it up a little bit if we really want to see if

hack works. You ready? I'm ready.

Oh, jeez.

Okay.

Oh, that was beautiful.

Let's test these. All right.

Wait, wait, wait. Before we open these, safety first.

Fashionable. Fashionable. All right. You got to tap away.

Okay. You ready? Yeah. Here we go. All hand.

Three, two, one.

Oh. Okay.

Considering the tumble that they took? Yeah.

That wasn't that bad. Two for two. The hack works.

Good day, ladies and gentlemen.

Oh, we are not done yet. I am going to take this, and we're going to kick it up

one more notch, Kev. So you just stay right here. I'll be back.

I don't think we have roof access. Mama's got a plan.

She took my beer. It's a paint cam shaker. This is the ultimate test to see

this tapping hack works. Cheers.

Okay.

Okay, I'd say that's violently shaken.

Okay.

I know, would you gently tap?

I'm a little nervous.

The hack was never designed for this level.

Okay, well, we'll find out.

On the count of three, two, one.

It could have been worse.

It could have been a lot worse. The whole thing could have exploded. This

actually moves the gas around and makes your beer less foamy. These things were

violently shaken. This is a phenomenal hack.

Cheers, everybody.

Cheers. A simple dent on your car door can cost hundreds of dollars to repair.

We're going to find out if a plunger, some dry ice, or a can of compressed air

can provide a quick and affordable fix.

This is a hack -off challenge.

Let's begin.

Yeah, the store has seen some serious rage.

Somebody got some real aggression out. Okay, I'm getting out of the way of

That is a clump of dry ice. The theory behind this is that the extreme

temperature using dry ice is going to cause the metal to contract the

in there. They're going to huddle up for warmth, and that should pop the dent

right out. Yeah, I don't see anything.

Yeah, I don't, uh... Oh, wait, wait.

Yeah, nope, nothing happened.

All right, Rob, what do you think? You were down there. You're the expert.

Yeah, I would say this technique is no good. It looks pretty cool, though.

Made some smoke. Right? I mean, that was pretty sweet.

So for this hack, we're going to be using a hair dryer to heat up the metal.

once it's nice and warm, we're going to take the compressed air, and this should

come out nice and cool.

You want to get it going? Yeah, let's give it a shot. Yeah, sounds plausible.

All right, how is it?

Feels warm.

Yeah, you want to give it a try?

Let's give it a try. Oh, yeah, that's nice and warm. All right, here we go.

Three, two, pull it.

Forget about it.

You're calling this one?

Calling it. Well, I thought this one might be a go. Made sense, the sort of

science behind cooling things down, and I've heard it works, and maybe it has

for some of you, but here, in this situation, it was a no -go.

Judging by our other hacks, I don't have faith in the plunger, but let's see if

it works. Sure.

So what are you going to do? Are you going to apply around the dent? Are you

going to go right over it? I'm going to go right about here. Okay.

That's a reasonable dent, though.

What?

Shit! Just one little plunge? That's it.

I mean, if it's going to work, it's going to be that easy?

Well, this is a flat area where they really need that much strength, so it's

lot stronger here. So this dent, you have to use another method on getting

out. And that concludes one of the most surprising hack -off challenges I have

ever witnessed.

Next time you get a door ding, call a plumber.

Hey, you work hard all week, so you don't want to spend your entire weekend

doing chores at home. You know, with just a few simple hacks, you'll have

feet up in the game on, because we're going to show you how to hack your

housekeeping.

Cleaning gutters blows.

But that's a good thing with this hack. Just attach a PVC pipe to a leaf blower,

and then attach a J -shaped drain to the pipe.

No leaf will be left behind.

There's nothing worse than a strip screw.

So get a grip by laying a rubber band across the top of your screwdriver and

then turn it.

But if your screw is too small, grab a toothpick.

If you wedge it in the hole, it gives the smaller screw something to cling to.

Wait, wait, wait. Do you still have that rubber band from earlier?

Because if so, use it around the mouth of an open paint can and then wipe your

brush on it. You're going to save a lot of cleanup time and paint remover.

See, now you have plenty of time to find a hobby.

Because you just hacked your housekeeping.

Coming up, we've got a hack that will bring those old shoes back to life.

And we'll see if this blender hack can fool the taste buds of these wine

drinkers. Plus, our hack of the week will ensure that you'll never lose your

again. Keep it here for more Hack My Life.

To the hacker, one man's trash is another man's treasure.

You can do all sorts of cool stuff with old shoes.

How about turning it into a pot for a plant?

Anybody want to do that?

I do? Okay, let's try it. Here's a fun fact. I've never used a power tool in my

entire life.

So we're going to drill a couple holes in the bottom of our shoe for the

drainage.

Oh, so satisfying.

So now we have some holes, and now we can put in a little potting mix. Oh,

is going to be such a healthy plant.

Look at that.

And now we transplant.

Let's go ahead and just wiggle that on in there.

We'll get it on in there. Don't worry.

Good.

This is the stupidest thing that I've ever done.

But look at it. That's a masterpiece right there.

Let's say you were just outside admiring your boot guard.

You got to come inside and you don't have a place to put your jacket.

That sounds like a major problem.

Give your coats a home with a 2x4, some nails, and some stilettos.

Put some nails into the top of that board.

Space them out however you like. Is that enough?

Oh, my God.

Marvelous. So look at that. Some stilettos, some nails, a board.

You got yourself a hat hanger, a coat hanger, whatever you want to hang.

Seconds ago, we had some shoes on a table, and now we have the beginnings of

masterful garden, and we have a wonderful coat and hat hanger.

Shoes!

Who knew?

Blenders are amazing when it comes to making margaritas, but can they make

wine taste better? Hey, wine drinkers, can you hack it?

Okay, for this pack, you just take a bottle of wine and pour the whole thing

into the blender.

Turbo aeration. Exactly. You know, and it should open up the flavor profile and

maybe make it more drinkable.

We'll see.

So just turn it on high for about four or five seconds. You got it.

Okay, I think it's aerated. Are we good? Yep. Just funnel it back into your

original bottle.

Okay, I think we're good to go. We'll clean this up a little bit and see if

somebody can tell the difference.

Ah, yes. Hello, please step right up. Do not be shy.

We are taste testing two wines.

One is an expensive bottle of wine, and the second is a bottle of wine which we

performed a hack on.

Okay, that was all pro. Yep. Big old sniff there.

Okay, so do you think bottle A or bottle B is the expensive bottle of wine?

I think I would have to go with bottle A as the more expensive wine. More

expensive? Yeah. Which wine do you think is the more expensive wine? There's a

$35 difference between the two of them.

Wow, my palate is playing tricks on me.

Which is the more expensive?

Wine B.

I think wine A was pretending to be a Mercedes Benz and B is expensive. I felt

like A was the more expensive wine than the B.

Okay. It is all tied up. Is that what you choose as well? Yeah, I would agree.

Getting his nose in there. I would say.

A. It's very rich. Wine A. I think that's the $40 one. Here we go.

Oh!

Wine A is a $5 bottle of wine that we performed a hack on. That blew me away.

stuck a bottle of wine in a blender for six seconds. Get out of here.

That's it.

I know.

Well, good for my bank account. I know.

Would you ever try that? I will now. Will you really? Yes.

Breaking down the hack.

Air -rating wine reduces its sulfite and sulfide and helps bring out the wine's

intended aroma and flavor.

By putting it in the blender, you basically age the flavor of your wine

a matter of seconds.

Let's make some spaghetti. What do you say?

All you'll need is a box of spaghetti.

frying pan and a quart of water. Open up this box of spaghetti and dump it

into your frying pan.

Pour enough water to fill the pan

halfway. Turn this up to a medium heat and now you're going to cook it until it

seems like the kind of pasta you'd want to eat.

So this is your finished product. There's a little bit of starchy water

left in the bottom of the pan. Some people like to use it as the basis for a

homemade sauce. I prefer sauce in a jar from a store. Real quick.

Dump it.

And that's the tagliato.

I call this dish spaghetti.

Coming up, this time -saving hack will keep you out of the ER.

What? A hack that will save you $600.

And our hack of the week.

We've shown you a lot of hacks today. But before we send you on your way,

delve a little deeper into four of the best.

Awesome, man. To help you become a true hacker.

Best time -saving hack. The gutter button.

The old -fashioned way takes about two hours and involves standing on a ladder,

which, come on, it's not safe. Ladder accidents account for over 164 ,000 ER

visits a year. You'll wait at the ER for an average of six hours, so that's

eight hours of your day with the possibility of a broken bone.

Best money -saving hack?

Vegetable oil shoe shine.

A $3 bottle of vegetable oil is good for roughly 75 shoe shines.

So if you use it once a week, it'll last almost a year and a half and save you

nearly $600.

Least likely to succeed, using your old high heels to make a coat rack. The

average woman spends $25 ,000 on shoes in her lifetime.

So how about you use some of that money to buy a real coat rack instead and

donate your old heels to charity.

And finally, the hack of the week. It's amazing. Using your skull to find your

car. Now there are devices and apps that can help, but they cost up to $25.

So be smart and use your head instead.