CAN'T BE AS GOOD AS HERR'S OLD BAY, BUT WHAT IS?  Lay's is market-testing and accepting consumer voting on which of three consumer-proposed flavors will remain in stores: Sriracha, chicken-and-waffles, or "cheesy garlic bread."

ESTROGENIC FUN-HOUSE RIDE:  Look: this blog's bias in favor of All Things Shonda is clear, but that's not going to stop me from linking to Mark Harris' EW thoughts on Scandal:

You should be watching Scandal, the weird, addictive hypersoap that is currently flying in the face of everything we officially revere about the neo–golden age of TV drama. Scandal is, one might argue, ludicrous and indefensible trash, but if so, it’s trash with a capital T, a bedazzled R, an anarchy-symbol A, a neon S, and an H that stands for “Holy s—, I can’t believe they did that!” It is also, against all odds, the most original drama on network TV right now.

BECAUSE NO MATTER HOW COOL THE TOYS WE HAVE AVAILABLE TO US ARE IN THIS EVER-EXPANDING MEDIA PLAYGROUND, SOME KIDS WILL ALWAYS HAVE BIGGER LAWYERS: Today's post contains a link with two acts and some smutty text: in Act One, Melissa Gira Grant complains about a letter she received from Chicago Public Media's lawyers challenging the title of her by-sex-workers, for-sex-workers podcast, This American Whore; in Act Two, Ira Glass responds to the complaint as only Ira Glass can. Stay with us.

THE LEES WERE PUTTING THEIR AUDIOPHILIC NECKS ON THE LINE TO PROP UP WHAT WAS, ESSENTIALLY, A FASHION COMPANY:  Great Gizmodo not-too-long read on how the father and son behind Monster Cable got beat by Dre (and Jimmy Iovine) in their premium headphone collaboration.

BEST. COLUMN. EVER.  Gene Weingarten has some complaints about modern English usage, such as:

Before the Internet, obfuscatory language was mostly limited to the small world of the interoffice memo, where everyone conspired to be as vague and process-driven as possible — promising nothing concrete while sounding businesslike. Today, however, terms such as “optimize,” “prioritize,” “initiative,” “parameter,” “implement” and “effectuate” have become common parlance on the Web, used unabashedly in endlessly intriguing combinations. There are hundreds of instances of “prioritize the implementation of,” “implement the prioritization of,” “effectuate the implementation of,” etc. The expression “implementation of prioritized initiatives” alone appears on the Internet 2,100 times, more often than some of Pablo Neruda’s lesser-known love poems.

I'M THE FIRST MAMMAL TO WEAR PANTS, YEAH:  WTF, Evolution?, a Tumblr "honoring natural selection's most baffling creations," including the star-nosed mole.

ARACHNOPHOBIA DESK: We loved ourselves Mansquito, Sharktopus, Jersey Shore Shark Attack, and many others.  But are you ready for Big Ass Spider?