I'm not entirely sure how it happened, but I can no longer just eat plain potato chips. There's just something about the flavor of potato that just seems to need... something else. True, potato chips already have the added flavor of salt, which is important, but there's just something about a completely synthetic powder that's supposed to taste like some other thing that I just really enjoy. It's kind of like those instant grits that they make with "cheddar flavor." There's no cheddar in the stuff at all, but whatever is in there just makes it much, much better than any kind of normal grit. Although, with grits I can pretty much get the same effect with something like a half a stick of butter. So I suppose if I just put some Blue Bonnet in my bag of Lay's...ewww. Minus 5 bullets.

A lot of people don't like barbecue potato chips, but those people are barbarians. When barbecue potato chips are good, they're really good. True, sometimes, barbecue flavoring can be bad, but only if you buy Wise potato chips of some of those other cheap-o chips, in which case, you deserve bad barbecue flavoring. Anyway, I think that adding good barbecue flavor to just about anything is helpful. Think about it. They've already made Pepsi Blue. So why don't they go ahead and make Pepsi Barbecue? I mean, I'd drink it. Plus 6 bullets.

A while back I had this idea that I was going to make a lot of money by doing to french fries what's already been done for potato chips. That is, I would flavor them. It soon came to my attention that it wasn't a very good idea at all, since french fries don't come pre-cooked, but instead come frozen and have to be, you know, cooked. My solution to that problem was that the fries should just come with a package of seasoning to be applied after the fries are cooked. I'm still thinking about doing that, so I'm trusting you all not to steal my idea. I bring all this up because the flavor that was on my mind the entire time I was thinking of this was sour cream 'n onion, for two reasons. One, because by sound itself sour cream 'n onion just sounds putrid and horrific, but in fact it's quite tasty, and two, sour cream 'n onion chips have those little green specks on the chips to denote flavor. It's like a siren call, saying, "Hey, check it out everybody! Flavor!" Plus 4 bullets.

This is yet another flavor of the "'n" persuasion (I'm guessing that potato chip makers just outright hate conjunctions in their full form). Trouble is, there's absolutely no need for it. All potato chips have salt. Frankly, if all potato chips went by the conventions of salt 'n vinegar, then we'd have "salt 'n sour cream 'n onion" or, for original, "salt." For all intents and purposes, these chips should simply be "vinegar" flavor. And since I had a bad experience with drinking vinegar straight out of the bottle as a child, that's kind of scary to me. Minus 3 bullets.

I really have trouble with ranch. Mainly because I have no idea what it has to do with a ranch. I mean, all the other potato chip flavors give you an idea of what they taste like by their name--barbecue tastes like barbecue, if barbecue were an orange powder. But if ranch tasted like a ranch, I suppose that would mean that it would have some sort of "cow" flavor or maybe a "horse" flavor. Then, of course, you would have to include all the byproducts of cows an horses. But instead, you get a taste that's simply very mellow and actually isn't that bad. And yes, I do thank God above that ranch doesn't really taste like a ranch, but I just can't stand false advertising. 0 bullets.

This is an actual flavor of potato chip in Britain which I just found out about today. True, given that I haven't technically even eaten smoked ham & pickle potato chips, since I just discovered them, I'm not really qualified to give an opinion on them, but I can try to imagine what they taste like. So, here we go. I'm just gonna close my eyes and...hmmmm...yes...I see...interesting flavor...I...gah!.. Eww! Blah! Blah! Urg! I'm gonna go scrape the little imaginary pieces off my tongue now. Minus 8 bullets.

So, potato chip flavors end up with an overall score of negative 6 bullets. Well, I guess I'll go ahead and cancel that order for the Ron Popeil food dryer now. Although the prospect of jerky remains enticing.

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