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Thirty-one Official Flavors

The latest in enhancements to ColdFun products, "Flavoracious" iced flav-o-bars contain valuable nutrients, essential amino acids and zingy flavors (now available in all security clearances). The ColdFun VendBot in MRL sector reports that "Red Citizens love the taste of Rockin' RadBerry at a ratio of 2:1" so that must mean something, right?

Infrared Clearance Dried Shrimp, Kelp, Soybean

Red Clearance Borscht, Radberry

Orange Clearance Nougat, Orange, Orange (revised), Sugarbean, Tam-O-RND (winner of the "Name that Flava" contest), Tangelo

Yellow Clearance Beverly, Cheddar, Lymon, Pineapple*

Green Clearance Dynomint, Sour Lime, Tastes-Like-Apple!,

Blue Clearance Blueberry, Horseradish, Spirulina, YumBot

Indigo Clearance Choco-Wham!, Durian, Koolmint, Vanilla-Prune

Violet Clearance Blackberry, Grape-like, Pink n' Purple, Salt, Snozzberry

Ultraviolet Clearance Thirty-second_Flavor

*Defective packaging on batches #00001 through #1231 labels this flavor as "Painapple," perhaps accounting for poor sales.

-- Brush-U-TTH-33

ADDENDUM ADDED BY JAN-U-ARY-31

As always, it’s great to see Brush-U contribute to this report with advertising slogans and puerile ramblings. But Friend Computer wants to know what happened during the Toothpaste Disaster, not what INFRARED vat mechanics might be chattering about in HUH sector. So: some relevant information regarding the Thirty-one Official Flavors.

HPD&MC instituted the list of Thirty-one Official Flavors, hereafter to be called the ToOF, in order to avoid perplexing low security clearance clones with excessive and unnecessary choices. Naturally, R&D keeps on brewing up new and confusing tastes in their labs, so we keep a list of Approximately Two-Hundred and Thirty-Seven Semi-Official Flavors Under Consideration1, and rotate flavors in and out of the ToOF on an ad hoc basis2.

Real foods were virtually unavailable at the time that the ToOF came into use, which is why there are flavor restrictions on foods consumed by higher security clearance clones. Real foods whose flavors aren't listed on the ToOF are unaffected, and as a general rule higher clearance clones eat whatever they damn well please. But those flavors that are listed in the ToOF supersede all other flavor allocation protocols. As a result, real foods often need to be re-flavored to prevent lower clearance clones from tasting higher clearance flavors. For example, it is now traditional for every RED clearance clone to receive a “Red Delicious” apple when they are promoted from INFRARED. But since “Tastes-Like-Apple” flavor is currently rated GREEN, these “Red Delicious” apples are impregnated with Kelp flavor for RED gustatory pleasure3.

Sometime during the early stages of the Toothpaste Disaster, the extant RED flavors of Seagull and Vitamin were rotated out, to be replaced by Bouillon and Borscht. Faced with the choice between a nauseating flavor and a Communist one, many clones starved, self-terminated, turned to the black market4 or, worst of all, accepted Communism into their gastrointestinal tracts5. The termination of a few key clones, along with the hallucinatory behavior of self-starved clones and a sizable drop in the Overall Happiness Index, wouldn’t have caused too much trouble in the ordinary course of events. But as always, timing is everything.

How the Communist flavor of Borscht got on the list, and why it’s still there a year later, remains a mystery. Hopefully someone in HPD&MC will clear it up6.

Recommendations

I recommend that HPD&MC and all of its Service Firms be liquidated, and all of its assets divided up among CPU, IntSec and PLC. It just makes sense.

-- Jan-U-ARY-31

Footnotes:

  1. There are, in fact, over twelve thousand Semi-Official Flavors Under Consideration. We still say there are Approximately Two-Hundred and Thirty-Seven for reasons of tradition, and to maintain backwards compatibility with earlier Flavor Request Forms. (1)

  2. Of course, we officially maintain that the list never changes, as a result of the infamous Flavor Riots of 206. To paraphrase the great Or-U-ELL, “We have always been at war with Orangina.” (2)

  3. The exact distinction between Apple flavor and Tastes-Like-Apple flavor cannot be adequately defined within the scope of this report. Additional information available upon request. (3)

  4. KriegsList showed a massive surge in black market sales of foodstuffs during the Disaster. For example, over 6000 units of Blood-flavored Hot Fun were shipped to LAH sector in a single day. (4)

  5. See “Workers for the Fourth Intersector Committee.” (5)

  6. But don't hold your breath. (6)

Cross-Refs: Borscht_Generator, Bouillon, KriegsList, Thirty-second_Flavor, Workers_for_the_Fourth_Intersector_Committee

Commentary:

Koolmint makes your breath fresh.

Fresh like my brain.

--CirK-U-LAT-23

Circ-U, can you still do your job in your current condition? Because, you know, I'll give you this shiny new apple if you'll just sign a few forms for me...

-- Jan-U

Do you even need to ask? Look at what he wrote, for Computer's sake.

I'd send over my deprogramming technicians just so that I wouldn't have to listen to the Fresh-Minded Babble, but they were among the clones sacrificed to ward off the Magic_Hate_Ball. Have you got any you can spare for a while?

-- Err-U-DYT-9

If such an action were to be undertaken, R&D would surely get the NeuroProgramming and construction properties, right?

-- Screwz-U-BAD-3

I'm thinkin' we'd prolly need t'talk about d'disposition'a construction-related property an' equipment.

-- Knok-U-OUT-7

I second the call to disband HPD & MC, but only if R&D gets all of it's chairs. We need more chairs in R&D (that aren't on fire).

-- Toothy-U-NIX-4

Actually, it would make the most sense for Technical Services to get the NeuroProgramming department, while Power Services would get the construction properties. R&D, however, is welcome to the chairs.

-- Jan-U

Well, considering the current fuel consumption projections for the auxiliary furnaces in HEL Sector, Power Services might be needing a few of those chairs as well - and, we'll handle storage of the current catalogue of edutainment pamphlets and the less well subscribed instructional infozines.

-- Costin-U-MOR-8

Word from HPD&MC indicates that they're finally pulling Orange (revised) flavor due to lack of sales. The open slot will be filled with a new RED flavor, Strawberry-Lobster.

Still no word on Borscht.

-- Jan-U

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2013-06-13 14:00