Awesome Leisure

Funwhole’s building block sets give LEGO a run for its money with more precise parts and lighting. This 1741-piece camper van kit features a fully-furnished interior, working doors, LED headlights, and details like a roof rack, solar panels, and a canvas shade for its outdoor seating area. The finished model measures 14.9″ L x 8.4″ H x 8.6″ W.

Following up on Conan Without Borders, Conan O’Brien returns to our screens with a four-episode international travel series. Along the way, the talk show host and comedy writer spreads his unique brand of joy to Norway, Thailand, and other yet-to-be-revealed locales. Coming soon to Max.

Most off-the-shelf LEGO kits offer limited amounts of motion. The Brick Experiment Channel shows how LEGO and Technic parts can be used to create action-packed kinetic sculptures. While the first design is finger-powered, all of the others are motorized. That twisty Hoberman Linkage is our favorite.

This very special collectible from Mighty Jaxx and design trio Ilustrata celebrates three amazing things – Godzilla, sushi, and The Great Wave off Kanagawa. The limited-edition 10″ vinyl art toy features Japan’s iconic kaiju made of imaginary sticky rice, raw salmon, and seaweed strips and stomping through the bluest bowl of miso soup we’ve ever seen.

Whether you’re a cat that likes to watch birds or a human that likes to watch videos, this clever bird feeder from Fred has got you covered. It attaches to the outside of your window and provides a live stream of birds wrapped in a frame that looks like the controls for a YouTube video. There should be a “Skip Squirrel” button.

Hungry? Enjoy a slice of Cake wrapped in spicy Red Hot Chili Peppers in this amazing remix from DJ Cummerbund. The track perfectly melds the song Going The Distance with Can’t Stop, and sprinkles in a dash of R.E.M.’s It’s The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine) for flavor.

To celebrate 25 years on Broadway, the cast and musicians of The Lion King stopped by the NPR offices to perform a series of songs from the award-winning musical. Their warm and enveloping performance of songs like Circle of Life, They Live in You, and Can You Feel the Love Tonight will bring sunshine to even the darkest day. HAKUNA MATATA!

We’ve finally found Bigfoot, and it turns out the elusive beast is not what we thought it was. Actually, Sasquatch is just a bunch of cats smooshed together. This delightfully weird 1000-piece Catsquatch puzzle was illustrated by artist Shyama Golden, as part of Fred’s Artist Series.

Ice age coming. Ice age coming. Blue are the people here. Remixer Willam Maranci is a master at combining songs that don’t seem to belong together. One of our recent favorites is this combo of Radiohead’s climate change chant Idioteque and Eiffel 65’s Eurodance hit Blue. It’s as unlikely a successful pairing as ham and pineapple.

Writer/Director Gareth Edwards (Rogue One, Monsters) leads this post-apocalyptic, sci-fi thriller about humans engaged in a with the artificial intelligence that now aims to wipe us out. But a soldier discovers the AI’s secret weapon is a child, and decides to protect it instead of destroy it.

Chicago’s best Italian Beef chefs are back for a second season of The Bear. Expect the frenetic and intense pace of a professional kitchen to continue as Carmy and his crew work to reinvent Original Beef of Chicagoland as an upscale new restaurant worthy of a James Beard Award winner. The new season premieres 6.22.23 on FX.

LEGO presents an epic recreation of the Batcave from Tim Burton’s 1992 flick Batman Returns. The 3981-piece LEGO Batcave features a detailed version of Bruce Wayne’s secret hideout inside a folding shadow box. A Batman logo cutout teases what’s inside, revealing amazing detail when opened. The set includes seven minifigs and a Burton-era Batmobile.

Hacksmith Industries has made plasma lightsabers in the past, but they all required a bulky external energy source to function. Now they’ve figured out a way to go cordless. Their latest design produces a face-melting 4500ºF beam, but its fuel and power source fit inside its (very long) handle. The 11,000-watt torch runs for 3 minutes per refill.

Seth from Robinson Foundry has created some unique metal objects. But most of his projects use a single kind of metal. This time, he made a geometric puzzle with pieces cast from copper, aluminum, and bronze. He 3D printed the shapes which he used to make ceramic molds for the molten metal. He used sand casting and woodworking to create the base.

A while back, How Ridiculous built a helicopter with baseball bat rotor blades. After putting that machine through its paces, they fitted it with metal fly swatters. Now they’ve retrofitted their high-speed spinner with katanas. After a scary incident with a loose blade, they tightened things up and played some Fruit Ninja.

Burls Art creates guitars from unusual materials. This time, he made an lap steel guitar from aluminum $1 coins that were once good for a discount at RadioShack. He started by making a sand mold, melted the coins to cast its body, then anodized it in red. We were hoping he would have embedded some unmelted coins though.

Showcasing Nathan Myhrvold’s obsession with food, photography, and science, Food & Drink is a slip-cased art book collecting 200+ delicious photographs from the award-winning Modernist Bread and Modernist Pizza plus Myhvold’s Modernist Cuisine Gallery, the first gallery showing food photography by a single artist.

We always wondered what kind of cocktails Bruce Wayne and his guests were sipping at all those fancy parties. Now we know, thanks to Gotham City Cocktails, a book filled with adult beverages and tasty bar bites inspired by Batman, Joker, Poison Ivy, and other characters from the popular DC Comics series.

Photographer Joerg Daiber takes us on a vibrant visual tour of The Netherlands’ capital city. Using tilt-shift and time-lapse techniques, the enlightened Dutch city’s historic canals, charming neighborhoods, and countless bicycles appear even more magical than they do in real life.

This CNC-machined, stainless steel fidget toy from Mechforce spins on multiple axes. It has three nested rings that rotate on smooth, ball-bearing gimbals. Once up to speed, it produces a captivating gyroscopic motion in the palm of your hand. When not in use, it lays flat.

The game of cricket is played with a leather-covered cork ball. Dukes Cricket has been making the balls since the 18th century. British Cricket Balls’ Managing Director walks us through the company’s process of hand-stitching every ball they make around layers of compressed cork, then smoothing and polishing them to a shine.

Builder Thor Drake of See See Motorcycles wanted the freedom to cook his own meals while traveling on his bike. So he teamed up with Indian Motorcycles and Traeger Grills to create a custom sidecar with a fully-operational Ironwood 885 pellet grill for campsite cookouts wherever his Springfield Dark Horse takes him.

After giving away a massive grand prize with its Million Dollar Puzzle, MSCHF’s big money jigsaw offers double the chances. This challenging 500-piece puzzle forms a giant QR code that you can scan with your phone to see if you won. Prizes range from 1 buck to a 1 million bucks, with two of the biggest prizes being offered this time.