Awesome Leisure

There’s something magical about nature guidebooks filled with illustrations and insights about the flora and fauna around us. From mountains to ocean shores, wetlands to deserts, How to Read the Wilderness: An Illustrated Guide to the Natural Wonders of North America blends art and science to reveal intimate details of wild places.

Amy Turk is an incredibly talented harpist and performs everything from classical to pop to video game music. She knocked it out of the park with the solo from Dire Straits’ Sultans of Swing, played on the Harp-E, an electroacoustic harp great at producing bends and microtones. Dave Stanton accompanies on guitar and bass.

John Boyega, Teyonah Parris, and Jamie Foxx star in this offbeat sci-fi caper film about a trio who stumble onto a crazy conspiracy in which they think the government is cloning and replacing everyday citizens. The rest of the plot is unclear, but wacky hijinks ensue. Coming soon to Netflix.

Produced in a state-of-the-art palenque in Axocopan, Puebla, Mexico, Del Maguey Vida Puebla adheres to Del Maguey’s tradition of “Single Village” expressions made by skilled mezcal craftsmen. Del Maguey knows their stuff, having introduced the category of traditional Mezcal in the USA 25 years ago.

The game QWOP challenged players to make a 2-dimensional figure walk using their keyboard to control its limbs. The 3D platformer Baby Steps takes this idea to the next level, asking gamers to move a character through a variety of challenging environments by controlling only his feet. Coming to PC and PS5 in 2024.

MicroCoaster’s miniature roller coaster kit lets you create custom tracks from over 900 parts, with 19 feet of track and a battery-powered lift hill. The S-scale coaster that rolls on its rails was inspired by Cedar Point’s Maverick coaster and rolls on 30 steel wheels. The initial batch is sold out but subscribe to their newsletter for updates on more releases.

There are many great games on the Xbox Series X|S, but there’s not been a killer app for Microsoft’s console. That could change with Starfield, an action RPG developed by Bethesda Game Studios exclusively for the console and PC. This in-depth video explores the game’s vast universe, missions, character and ship customizations, and endless possibilities.

Sam Pilgrim loves to ride unusual bikes. This time, he was joined by his little brother Lewi on a crazy two-wheeler called the Buddy Bike. This modified bicycle seats two in a side-by-side configuration, and each rider has their own pedals and set of handlebars to hang onto. Only the right-hand rider gets to steer and control the brakes, though.

Author Jon Morris wrote this series of comic book history books, including silly superheroes like Doctor Hormone, freakish villains like Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man, and stupid sidekicks like Frosting the Bear. The books are packed with vintage art, backstories on the characters, and amusing commentary.

It’s hard to top the original Sonic the Hedgehog games for their sheer sense of speed, excitement, and iconic level design. Sonic Superstars aims to freshen up the 2D platform action with modern graphics, all-new zones, new Chaos Emerald powers, and the ability to play side-by-side with friends as Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Amy Rose. Drops fall 2023.

Those Kenner Star Wars AT-AT toys were awesome to play with, but we had to use our imaginations to get them to walk as they did in The Empire Strikes Back. For engineer James Bruton, that wasn’t good enough, so he got to work rebuilding a version of the imperial walker with a servo-powered drivetrain that lets it really walk.

Musician João Fuss arranged and performed this fantastic classical guitar version of the Marilyn Manson track The Beautiful People. It’s still got the great staccato sound of the original but with a stripped-down fingerstyle approach. His acoustic covers of Black Hole Sun and Otherside are similarly wonderful.

Ubisoft’s Star Wars Outlaws is an open-world game that puts you in the role of Kay Vess, a mischievous young woman attempting to start a new life against the backdrop of Imperial rule. Taking place between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, she and her companion Nix must elude the Empire and contend with galactic crime syndicates.

The eyes on Spider-Man’s mask typically have a fixed expression. But Sean’s Crafts took on the challenge of giving Spidey more visible emotion by making his eyes change shape. He started by making a mask from poster board, fiberglass cloth, resin, and wood filler. Then he rigged it with mechanical eye shutters controlled by a bike cable.

Have you ever thought it might be cool to be a bartender? This GoPro video from Fallow Restaurant bar managers Markus and Chris provides a first-person view of life behind the bar during a sunny summer day at the popular London dining and drinking spot. We can only imagine what it’s like when it’s really busy.

The steampunk world of Clockwork Revolution bears more than a passing resemblance to BioShock: Infinite, but it’s the start of a new game franchise. The first-person RPG has you traveling through time to witness key moments in the history of Avalon, and your decisions and actions can have profound effects on the city’s future.

This collection of four books from wilderness expert and author Dave Canterbury includes everything you ever wanted to know about thriving in the wild. The combined reference guides include over 1000 pages of techniques for building shelters, trapping, gathering, and cooking, along with first aid and survival.

A standard Rubik’s Cube has six faces, each with a 3×3 grid of colored blocks. But there are dozens of other Rubik’s variants, ranging from a single block to hundreds of blocks. Hafu Go got together with puzzle-solving expert SoupTimmy to work through progressively more challenging versions of the cube, all the way up to the $1000+ Impossible Cube.

Enjoy hot meals and beverages while camping with Arnaud’s lightweight rocket stove. The FireTower breaks down to the size of a small book, and is engineered for optimal airflow and efficiency. It’s fueled by adding sticks, twigs, or other biofuels to its side feeder. Made from durable stainless steel and weights just 1.1 pounds.

Core Equipment’s saucer-shaped chair offers a cozy, oversized seating area, along with a quilted seat and a padded headrest. Its fold-up steel frame can hold up to 300 lb, and it includes a built-in cupholder, and a carrying bag. Available in grey or wine red.

Artist Duane Perera is a master at his craft. He makes playful miniature scenes inspired by pop culture. Each diorama features characters enjoying everyday life, like playing video games, listening to CDs, or record shopping. His making of video for his Scarface plays NES diorama is priceless. Duane sells prints of his work on Redbubble, and we want all of them.

Nicolas Cage and Joel Kinnaman star in this low-budget drama about a man who finds himself held at gunpoint by a strange and trigger-happy passenger who ends up taking him on the ride of his life. Expect plenty of scenery chewing in this one. In theaters and on-demand 7.28.2023.

Handy Geng’s brother loves to fish. But when he’s out on the water, he doesn’t come back to land for hours on end. To help his bro, he engineered a crazy homebrew recreational vehicle that can drive into the water and has a living room, kitchen, and bedroom. He built its frame from steel pipe, then added PVC pipes for floatation. Turn on English captions.