Okay, we've had a couple of days of fun and fluffy writings, but today I have to discuss what I consider to be a very serious matter. Can someone, anyone, tell me when Doritos became their own food group? I love a good snack chip as much as the next guy, and while, like all good code monkeys, I do enjoy Fritos, I will often take up a bag of their unnaturally colored cousins and partake heartily of the greasy goodness contained therein. But I think maybe the people who come up with new flavors have been allowed unrestrained creativity for a bit too long, and might do well with a little bit of reigning in.
Actually, before I even get to the overwhelming growth of gustatory sensations that the good people at Frito Lay have imparted upon us, let's discuss some misleading marketing on their part. For the last few years, marketing folk have been trying to convince us all that Doritos are "extreme". Part of this is that someone is under the impression that putting the word "extreme", or even better a semi-retarded spelling of it such as "Xtreme", on a product will make it appealing to, well, honestly I don't know who. They really believe that this label will make people choose one product over another, apparently in an effort to absorb some measure of extremeness themselves, which is ironic when you realize that in common English, "Extremist" is often a term used when someone is trying to politely avoid using "fanatical douche".
Anyway, we've been told that Doritos are, in fact, not just extreme, but an "intense experience" (warning: both links are Penny Arcade, which means very salty language - funny and worth it, but very salty). I can't add much that Tycho didn't already cover in the links on that front, but I will point out one flaw in this logic. The usage of "extreme" this way started out with sports. So called "extreme sports" were more dangerous than other sports - and were thus extreme. Well, about the time that Doritos began marketing themselves this way, they changed the shape of the chip from the classic sharp-pointed orange triangle of death to the currently found fluffy, rounded edge Dorito. So the kids today, while thinking themselves "extreme" will never know the joy of prematurely swallowing a Dorito only to experience the sensation of that chip slowly dragging itself down their esophageal path, leaving a wake of destruction behind it. That, my friends, is &$%*ing extreme.
Extremety aside, Doritos have now branched out into so many flavors that I'm not sure how to approach them anymore. Undoubtably this is another symptom of the fact that I'm getting old. When I was but a wee lad, Doritos had one flavor. I don't think they even had a name for the flavor - it was Dorito flavor. This eventually became Nacho Cheese flavor when the first new flavor was introduced, namely Cool Ranch. That's right - my life as a young man was so enthralling that I actually noted the release of a new Dorito flavor as an event worth remembering. Sheesh.
Okay, so a couple of flavors of Doritos. That was fine - choice is a good thing. But they didn't stop. Every couple of months it seems, we get a new flavor of Doritos now. A quick check on Wikipedia shows that there are currently sixteen flavors of Doritos available in the US. This excludes the international Dorito flavors such as Pure Paprika, Honey BBQ (both found in the Netherlands and Sweden) and Incognito(Mexico - apparently salsa with lemon flavor). This also excludes their limited-release flavors which they trot out like collector's editions. One wonders if somewhere there is a Dorito connoisseur admiring a glass case containing hundreds of pristine Big Grab® bags of each variety that has been released. "Ah, here we have the original limited release Black Pepper Jack bag, before the popularity caused them to be added to the permanent Dorito family. Now, if you'll step over here I'll show you the extremely rare Doritos 3D's in Monster Colorz." This would undoubtedly be interrupted by his mother calling down into the basement to see if he and his guest would like some lemonade.
In all fairness, this has led to some good things. The Spicy Habanero variety simultaneously brings me terrific joy and terrific suffering - it's like puberty in a bag. The problem is that there is only so much shelf space, so each new flavor they roll out has to replace something. So my delicious Spicy Habanero has been replaces at the local gas station with Sweet and Spicy Chile which I have found tastes vaguely of unclean sweat socks (or at least what I imagine unclean sweat socks would taste like). So until they settle down a bit, I will have to avoid trying things that I may enjoy only to find them vanish when they come out with Beer and Cheeseburger flavored Super Xtreme Doritos.
Ah, who am I kidding? I would totally try Beer and Cheeseburger flavored Doritos.
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