Awesome Leisure

Animator, LEGO and Batman fan Idan Kotzen created this fantastic animated short celebrating some of the various Batmobiles over the years. The stop-motion and clever use of lighting give the cars a great sense of movement, as LEGO Batman gives chase to the evildoers of Gotham.

This campsite set from Republic of Durable Goods combines their Mock One self-standing hammock with a detachable bug net and lightweight roof structure, providing shelter from the elements while you relax and unwind. The hammock can also be used standalone and includes a sun shade canopy and a cozy sleep quilt.

We love opening those little doors on advent calendars for sweet surprises. Eight Days of Spirits’ windows hide artisanal cocktail mixers and barrel-aged bitters by Woodford Reserve and Williams Sonoma. Festive faves include Orange, Chocolate and Cherry Bitters, and Old Fashioned, Whiskey Sour, and Spiced Apple.

Giancarlo Esposito heads up the cast of this Netflix series about a master thief who assembles a crew to pull off a $7 billion heist. With its story unfolding over 25 years, the episodes stream in random order other than the finale. Each resulting sequence offers differing perspectives on the story. Drops 1.1.2023.

After a pandemic and supply chain delays, the Hitch Hotel is back and even better for 2023. The tiny trailer collapses down small enough to store in the corner of your garage but expands to a 7-foot camper that sleeps two adults. It’s got a lightweight aluminum frame and fiberglass shell, so it only adds 950 pounds of towing weight.

Many of today’s popular toys are pretty different from those sold in the 1960s and 1970s. But in this video from Rhetty for History, you’ll see for as many things have changed, classics like NERF, Hot Wheels, and LEGO are still selling well today. And then there’s the Pet Rock.

We’ve been spellbound by the many unconventional LEGO structures posted on the Brick Bending channel. For this creation, they linked together 3696 1×2 plates with 72 2×2 plates to create a spherical rhombicuboctahedron. You’d never know where this build was going if we didn’t tell you first.

Musician Seb Skelly is known for his original brass arrangements of popular songs. In all the years we’ve been following him, this is the first time we’ve heard him take on a David Bowie track. So put on your red shoes and dance the blues to his excellent cover of Bowie’s 1983 hit track Let’s Dance.

After being left to care for her 8-year-old niece, a roboticist decides she could use some help. So she programs her prototype toy robot to be her niece’s companion. Naturally, the thing goes nuts in this horror from writer/producer James Wan, the man behind Saw, Insidious, and The Conjuring. In theaters 1.6.2023.

Wood Season shows us how they created a chess board that looks like its playing surface is floating on water. The trick was encasing oak wood blocks in a thick bath of clear resin, then backlighting them with LEDs. A pearlescent resin backing and floating pine cones add to the effect. The set is available for sale on Etsy.

This short video from Instrument Maniac is less about music and more about the size of his instrument collection. In the next two minutes, you’ll hear how the same 7-note sequence sounds on more than 90 different musical instruments, from harp to flute to flugelhorn to cowbell. Which instruments do you play?

We recently discovered musician Anne Reburn and her catalog of wonderful covers and originals. Her warmth and charm are guaranteed to bring sunshine into any dark day. We couldn’t pick a favorite, but we’re big Flight of the Conchords fans, so here’s her version of the Kiwi duo’s song about friendship.

Instead of going to Iceland to see the Northern Lights only to see nothing, I could’ve just gazed into the iridescent bottle of Crystal Head Aurora, a metalized skull inspired by the Aurora Borealis. The additive-free vodka inside is distilled 5X and filtered 7X, including three passes through layers of Herkimer diamonds.

Imagine for the moment that the AC/DC classic Back in Black was recorded by Fall Out Boy or some other early 2000s emo band. Musician Todd Barriage transformed the rock anthem into a totally different song with that super-emo style. He definitely nailed the sound, but we kind of think this belongs on There I Ruined It.

Symphony 6 is an inventive botanical spirit produced with six fragrant leaves that are otherwise rarely used in distillation: mandarin, lemon, coffee, black currant and fig. Made in California by Copenhagen-based Empirical, the uniquely pink elixir is a bright, floral, citrusy and earthy addition to the sustainable bar arsenal.

After gulping down a can of sponsor Monster Energy’s high-powered drink, snowbiker and X Games athlete Cody Matechuk headed into the snow-capped mountains of British Colombia for a thrilling ride on his motorized snowbike. Expect lots of daring jumps off of rocky cliffs into a thick cushion of fresh powder.

Things go completely off the rails in this epic Gymkhana video. Travis Pastrana goes wild on the streets of Florida as he takes on monster trucks, a fighter jet, a drag racer, jet skiers, and a helicopter all while he hoons about in a bonkers 1983 Subaru GL wagon that’s been upgraded with an 864-horsepower engine.

Los Arango tequila honors Jose Doroteo Arango (AKA Pancho Villa) for defending his people in the Mexican Revolution. Its locally harvested 100% Blue Weber Agave is fired onsite in clay ovens, fermented with a specialty yeast strain, double distilled, then bottled in blown glass and hand-finished with leather, metal, and wood accents.

Making mixed tapes for paramours may have gone the way of the dodo, but record lovers can still wear their vinyl on their sleeves by sending These Songs Remind Me of You notecards. Shaped like 45 singles, 12 clever all-occasion card designs by illustrator Tuesday Bassen slide into envelopes resembling single sleeves.

Celebrate your love for music and print art with Taschen’s compact (6.5″ x 8.8″) but densely-packed 512-page compendium of album art. The book features classic images from more than 750 albums, along with a fact sheet listing the key artists involved in its creation.

Meaning “breast,” pechuga is a mezcal-based spirit that adds or hangs ingredients in the still to impart aroma, texture, and flavor from everything from strawberries to turkey. Rarely found in the US, pechuga is made in Mexico by mezcaleros for celebrations and provides an offering or spiritual connection to the dead.

Weezer’s Rivers Cuomo shows off his multitude of talents in this wild music video by director Peter Quinn. The tricky visual effects shots make it appear that Rivers has cloned himself and performed all of the instruments on the track What Happens After You? from the band’s 2022 seasonal release SZNZ: Autumn.

HBO and the creator of Chernobyl take on the brilliant, bleak, and nightmarish video game The Last of Us. Pedro Pascal (The Mandalorian) and Bella Ramsay (Game of Thrones) find themselves partnered up as they try and survive a post-apocalyptic world filled with terrifying mutants and even worse humans. Premieres 1.15.2023.