The marketing Sufis at Frito-Lay decided that they would build interest in Doritos by keeping the newest flavor secret. It’s referred to on the bag as X-13D^* and there’s a hint on the bag that says, “All-American Classic”.

Thanks to the Internet it’s impossible to keep a secret for long, so it’s already been revealed that the mystery flavor is actually “Somewhat Hamburger Flavored Horror”. I assume the first and last words there weren’t intended, but the “hamburger” flavor consists largely of mustard and pickle, which I would bet are two hamburger ingredients most commonly asked to be left off the hamburger. I verified this flavor myself last week when I brought a bag over to the James’ gang for gaming. This bunch, in which certain members (including myself) will eat any chips, pretty much passed on these and I ended up bringing half the bag home.

Doritos have been crazy with new flavors recently, and they’re getting much further and further from what one might imagine are a corn chip with some kind of dip (Nacho Cheese, Cool Ranch). I know because I enjoy Jelly Belly jellybeans that you can now make anything taste like anything, but honestly, I really don’t need corn chips that taste like venison or grape or sushi or whatever.

I’ll tell you what flavor I do want, though. When I was a kid they used to make Taco-flavored Doritos and man, they were awesome. At some point, though, they switched the flavor and re-branded it “Taco Bell” or whatever and then it was no longer anywhere close to awesome. Then they disappeared altogether (though I think they are still available — in non-awesome format — in limited locations.) When we first moved here I discovered that an off-brand, Utz, had a “taco” flavored chip that was JUST LIKE those Doritos, but alas, I bought a grand total of two bags before they vanished into the aether.

When I was looking for an image of an old Taco Doritos bag for this post I came across this interesting Wikipedia entry!

Taco Doritos were a type of chip made by Frito-Lay several decades ago. Some consumers consider Taco Doritos to be the most delicious chip ever created. Unfortunately, the original Taco Dorito chip was discontinued somewhere between the late 1980’s and early 1990’s and were replaced by an inferior, somewhat flavorless chip that is still marketed under the same name. While the original Taco Dorito had an intense, zesty taco taste, one remarkable thing about the chip was that it had no sour cream or cheese taste unlike the replacement chip. People who enjoyed the chip in 1970’s have been outraged by the disappearance of the original taco dorito, and many have phoned the Frito-Lay company begging to have the chips brought back. Much to our dissatisfaction, Frito-Lay has no plans to ever bring back the chip; one rumor states that the seasoning used in the original Taco Doritos often “gummed up” the factory machines and is one reason for the recipe’s alteration.

I’m not alone! Others also recognize the Glory That Was! Unfortunately, I guess Frito-Lay cares more about its beloved non-gummed-up machines than it does about its begging, pleading customers. Well I will not have nasty-ass pseudo-hamburger chips gumming up my works, Frito-Lay! Gimme some damn original Taco Doritos and keep your weirdo flavors to yourself.

—-
^* — As opposed to X-23, which tastes like Wolverine.

Someone just ran into and killed a dog on my street. One of these assholes that comes tearing through all the time in an effort to avoid the stoplight because they’re freakin’ Batman and if they have to stop for a moment the Joker might get away. And no, the guy didn’t stop, of course. He had someplace to BE.

This time it was only someone’s pet and not one of the many kids on the street, so MISTAR FASTEST DRIVAR!!!@!!! isn’t quite in the area of negligent homicide yet.

Dumbass.

Speaking of assholes, I posted about this on BoardGameGeek and of course it took very little time for the parade of SERVES THE DOG OWNER RIGHT! to begin. If you’re planning on making a similar comment here, please just go elsewhere instead.

(Edit: I deleted the BGG post because one guy in particular decided to play “Wheee look how much of an asshole I can be” in it.)

It’s very cool and I think you wi,gffdfnkld

DO NOT WATCH IT! IT’S NOT SAFE FOR WORK OR HOME OR ANYONE! ITsdfj

This is a wonderful video and you will totally enjoy it!

Viva la Gunther!

If you want to see more viddggddy5

OH GOD SOMEONE HELP! THEY’RE CUTTING OFF MY THUMBS! THEY’RE CUTTING OFF MY THUMBS!!!

On Friday afternoon, Becky and I headed over to Home Depot to pick up a bunch of things for some small projects. We ultimately left without buying anything.

Not that we had a whole lot of things to buy in the first place. For such a huge store, the selection was pretty poor. We looked at cheap metal shelves and found that they didn’t have much to choose from and the ones they had weren’t cheap. Many of the other items on the list, none of which were obscure in any way, couldn’t be found. Perhaps they were there, somewhere, but we had trouble even finding anyone on the floor to ask. The entire time we were there, numerous pages echoed through the place asking for someone — anyone — to help a customer.

As you can imagine, on a Friday afternoon, with everyone buying stuff for their weekend honey-do lists, as we were, it was pretty busy. Nevertheless there was a single staffed checkout lane open. One. It had about a half-dozen people in line. The “self-serve” lines were open, but they were also pretty packed. We got into the only open lane with an actual human in it and it immediately shut down while the customer ahead of us argued with them about the price of something that had been mislabeled and stocked in the wrong place.

We got fed up and left, but first I decided I was going to let them know why we were leaving empty-handed. I started out at the customer service desk, which also had a long line, and where an employee had just finished a shouting match with a different customer. So instead I went to the person monitoring the self-serve lanes and told her, “I know this isn’t your fault, but there’s something you might want to tell whatever manager is on duty.” I then went into our experience, particularly the lack of checkout lines. Her response was to point to the self-serve lines and say, “These are open.”

It’s that last part that drives me up the wall the most. These huge stores like Home Depot, Wal-Mart, Lowes, and so forth, crawl into an area on a slime trail of tax breaks from the city. In return they promise jobs, but they don’t deliver. Four self-serve lanes means three fewer jobs at any given time. Nobody on the floor to help people means even fewer jobs. Sure, many people will say, “Well I always know what I want, so I don’t care that there’s nobody on the floor, and the self-serve lane means I get done faster and don’t have to deal with anyone!” Maybe so, but you’re still paying for things that you aren’t getting. It’s not like the prices at Home Depot are that fantastic; we were only there because our credit card company gives us a break there.

We ended up going to the closest thing we have to a local hardware store, where we got just about everything we were looking for, including advice from a guy who kept us from buying the wrong paint, which we almost got at Home Depot. When I needed someone to cut a key for me, there were three people nearby to help. And the prices weren’t much different from what we’d seen earlier.

In conclusion: David Wilcox is right.

Saturday I was noodling around on the internet and was spurred to do one of my regular searches: looking for a source for the video to “Special One” by Ultra Vivid scene (featuring Kim Deal!). I only saw this video once in my life and would love to see it again.

I decide to check YouTube and holy cow it’s there! RAWK!

I click on the link and:

This video has been removed due to copyright infringement.

Show of hands: before I mentioned this video, who had ever heard of it?

God only knows what would happen if someone saw, for free, a music video by a band no one’s heard of that doesn’t exist anymore from an album that’s out of print and the artist doesn’t like anyway, which isn’t available in any other form whatsoever. WELL PLAYED, 4AD!

Stupid music industry.

First, that someone in the computer industry makes this crap history:

It’s the 21st Century, people. This is ridiculous.

And second, that the guy who thought it would be excellent if a computer cable had FREAKIN BARBS ON IT

walks into a door frame.

How far do you think you’re going to get if you keep apologizing for telling the truth?

I just accidentally wiped the drive with all 65GB of my mp3s on it.