Nuclear Candy

It’s Lent, which for Catholics ’round the world equals abstaining from meat on Fridays. It also means fish fry season…one of my absolute favorite times of year. In this week’s column, I explain what fish fries are and what attending one is like.

A view from the line of the Holy Name Fish Fry in Omaha, 2009.

I tried to capture the experience, but it’s one so rich and lush with sensory cues and wonderful people that it was challenging. I also didn’t want to appear…churchy, especially since I am promoting a Catholic event but am not a practicing member of that faith. However, I am not speaking without a good deal of familiarity. I was raised Catholic, in a solely Catholic family, and attended Catholic schools until my sophomore year of high school. Religion aside, fish fries are an experience that can only be understood by attending one yourself. Hell, I love them and I don’t really like fried fish!

A snapshot of me (far right) laughing with my best dudes at a fish fry in 2009.

My advice for a fish fry virgin: be friendly and meet new people. Everyone is there to have a good time, and with so many people in close proximity, you are bound to talk to a stranger. Be open to it. Share. Laugh. Soon you may also equate the stink of fried fish and spilled beer with love and friendship like I do.

After some delay, we’re excited to reinstate our weekly mixtape feature. This week’s mix, It Thaws, is like an audio awakening after an especially frozen winter featuring Bob Dylan, Fionn Regan, Ben Harper and a handful of other equally talented chaps.

New crush alert: U.S. figure skater and Olympian Johnny Weir. It’s not the”wanna make-outwith him forever” crush, more of the “make snarky comments about strangers’ outfits over drinks” type, but I’ve fallen for his fabulosity.

Get all the details (and a stellar photo of J.Weir) in my full Pop Goes Your Culture column.

Its many positive attributes aside, Omaha, Neb. is not known for being a brewing and distilling mecca. It’s also not the first location associated with packaging design (well, I’m not sure what is, but it sure isn’t Omaha). And then came Lucky Bucket Brewing and Solas Distillery. Not only is this the first brewery and distillery in Nebraska since pre-Prohibition, it’s a company that invests in beautiful packaging.

Love, love, love that they take a small (but growing) family of beers and give each of them a look that marries perfectly with the brew itself.

Prohibition Style Lager, Certified Evil, IPA

And their first spirit, Joss Vodka, looks the part of a premium vodka. Simply adore the use of red label behind the neck.

All the design (identity, site and packaging) came from Archrival, based just down I-80 West in Lincoln. There are plans for expanding the brand reach and product offerings, i.e. more opportunities for beautiful package design. I can’t wait to see the branding and bottle for the forth-coming whiskey…that just started its three-year aging process. Time for me to practice my patience, I suppose.

Premium vodka + the mythical crystal skulls + Dan Aykroyd = fodder for a pop culture columnist. This week’s Pop Goes Your Culture explains it all.

Today has reached the forecast high temperature of 4 F. And compared to the -17 F I faced when coming to work this morning, I’ll take it.

For anyone else suffering at the bitter cold hands of winter, this week’s mixtape is designed to get you up and shaking your thang.

Remember kids, not only is dancing good fun, it helps save you from freezing to death!

Thanks to The Reader for including me in their annual list of community wishes. I’m listed about two-thirds down the page. Based on all the good ideas and goodwill coming from such a vibrant group of leaders, it looks like 2010 is going to be big for the Omaha area.

Any wishes you’d like to add for your community? Do it in the comments!

Like many a geek girl and boy, this holiday season I was really hoping for Last Night on Earth, the zombie survival board game. (Don’t act like you didn’t want it…or do now that you have heard of it.) A board game with play designed after horror movies where you are encouraged to kill zombies? It’s a no (don’t eat my) brainer.

When it comes to games, I keep it pretty classic. Think Trivial Pursuit or Scrabble in lieu of WoW or D&D. So the idea of playing a game using scenario cards, eight six-sided die and multiple player figures was daunting at first.

But for the urge to hone my zombie survival skills was too great to ignore. Christmas night, the boy and I sat down for a good ol’ fashioned holiday Zombies vs Heroes bout. Naturally, I played the Heroes team, and the boy graciously played for the Zombies (who says chivalry is dead?). Getting the game set up was pretty easy and quite interesting. There’s a center game board surrounded by four L-shaped boards picked at random from the six included. We played the basic game, you know, to get our zombie-slaying and human-hungry feet wet and to get used to the rules.

Essentially, the Heroes have a set number of turns to slay a certain number of Zombies that are overrunning the town.  In our case, I had 15 turns for my 4 Heroes to kill 15 zombies.  Each side (in this case, each player) has a set of steps to take each turn. The game included handy cards that listed the steps for the forgetful (or those, ahem, drinking whiskey while playing). The Zombies get to walk around and pick fights with Heroes, each match settled by a roll of die. Enter in Zombie Event cards (such as cutting the power to disable some Heroes or challenge them to a re-roll) and Hero Event and Weapon cards (pump action shotgun, anyone?), and the game gets increasingly more interesting.

It should not come as a surprise that I vanquished the zombie scum from the town of Woodinvale (I’m considering renaming the town for my personal amusement), but it wasn’t without struggle against my foe. I can see how the game could fulfill its claim of never being the same as well as the extra fun in adding more players. If you love to hate zombies, adore horror films or just like to play board games, see how you fare on Last Night on Earth.

Design and inspiration site Colourlovers is taking the industry’s selection of the next year’s colors and opening it up to their community at large to Choose the Color of the Year 2010. All you have to do is enter keywords you think will fit 2010, and it suggests appropriate hues. Then adjust the mood, set the color and give it a name. You can provide a description and link to your Twitter account (very useful if you a) don’t have a Colourlovers account or b) like me, forget your login info.

Here’s my prediction:

As a writer working in the ad industry, I’m constantly shocked by the lack of interest and accolade given to good copy. Imagine my glee when I stumbled across Modern Copywriter, a collection of some of the best copywriters with examples of and links to their work.

Lawson Clarke is one of my professional crushes because of his penchant for concise wit (Jack Daniels’s ads especially) and for his ability to advertise himself.

Robyn Gunn is another simply stellar writer who knows how to use space (or the lack there of) to make the copy work just as hard, if not harder, than the visual.