"WHAM!"
"POW"
"SPRUNCH!"

I respect Alan Moore's perspective and choices in this matter, and it sucks that he's been dicked around by the industry, but at the same time it sometimes seems like he's just plain being curmudgeonly. When asked about the 300 movie, he didn't address it since he didn't even see it, but simply panned the comic book and assumed the movie would be exactly the same. He happened to be mostly accurate, but imagine if he had done this with Batman comparing its modern incarnation to, say, the 1966 movie; or the original Hitchhiker's Guide radio show in comparison to the movie. He'd have looked an incredible fool, and in any case it's disingenuous to criticize something when you've only seen its incarnation in another medium.

That being said, I quite like Watchmen and most of Alan Moore's works in general. Doesn't mean I have to like everything he says or does.

I think there's also some confusion in the term "sample," as it can also be used to refer to a softsynth instrument in many applications. Especially in MOD trackers, which basically take whatever .WAV files you give them and use them as instruments, whether it's a square wave, a drum loop or the audio track of an entire episode of Star Trek.

I don't have an inherent problem with sampling, really, as long as the musician gives adequate credit to the original artist. And, of course, Timbaland just happened to fail miserably at that. So he's not quire the spokesperson I'd choose for this.

Yes, there are software suites out there that are basically Fisher Price My First DJ Studio­®, and there are plenty of no-talent assclowns who throw a few loops together and crap them out. But computers and electronic instruments, in the end, are tools for creating music the same as a saxophone or piano or guitar: You only get out of them what the musician puts into them. There are some amazing musicians out there who use almost nothing but electronic instrumentation (though most of the better ones integrate that with various live instrumentation), and there are terrible musicians who use every kind of instrument under the sun.

Your argument shows that you know nothing about music OR production software. Thanks for playing, though!

Plus, the "welfare queen" stereotype is pretty much just a strawman argument these days. No matter what kind of tax system you have, somebody is going to take unfair advantage of it, and people on every point of the economic spectrum will find their own ways to do so. This argument just distracts from discussing the actual purpose and necessity of taxation. The idea is to maximize benefit to everybody, while minimizing that kind of wrongdoing. Give me a system that works at 100% efficiency and I'll give you a Nobel Prize.

As for this? Yeah, it sounds like a steaming pile.

Tiger got to sleep,
Bird got to land,
Man got to keep his debt from getting out of hand.

Watching the "gameplay vs. graphics" debate here is hilarious. Newsflash: This game was designed for fans of the original, classic Megaman series. If that's not your bag, don't pay $10 (good lord, the average terrible-GBA-movie-tie-in game probably sells for more than that still) for it and don't deride the people who happen to like classic 8-bit style. If it IS your bag, don't look down on the people who aren't interested like they're retarded toddlers.

It would have been interesting, though, if Capcom had compromised a bit and used classic gameplay with slightly upgraded visuals and audio, a la Contra 4 for the DS (which is one of the most incredible tributes/sequels to a classic NES series I've ever played).

Hell, seeing Street Fighter IV on there is already making me watch the sky nervously for signs of meteors and dudes with scythes on horses.

Besides, all of you saying you played the original Doom and didn't see any of these sort of things are blatantly lying. There are plenty of extremely dark areas (end of E1M6 anyone?) and monster closets (they're actually getting much more out of control in player-made WADs than they ever, ever were in Doom 3) to be found in the original Doom games - hell, isn't that part of what made them memorable? Instead of Nazis just hanging around and waiting for you to drop on by, the game actually puts some variety in the mix!

Not to mention that the monster count in the original 3 Doom episodes was actually relatively low - it wasn't until Doom 2 that we started seeing more of the "frantic arena brawl" style that's misattributed to the first game, and its focus on that aspect detracted slightly from the sense of place that made E1 so legendary. I don't think a single Doom I map exceeded 100 monsters. Doom didn't become turly notorious for giant slaughterfests until player-made WADs hit the scene with bloodbaths like Hell Revealed and Alien Vendetta. Thankfully, giant arena brawls have been continued with games like Serious Sam and Painkiller, which are both fantastic.

So Doom 3 isn't exactly what people expected from the Doom franchise, but in retrospect the original Doom wasn't either. It wasn't until Doom 2 and the advent of PWADs that it came to exemplify that style of gameplay. Doom 3 occupies an interesting middle ground between games like Serious Sam and Painiller, and games like Half-Life 2 and System Shock 2, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I will, however, concede that the gimmick boss fights were disappointing, and that there really could have been a lot more monster variety than just IMPS IMPS IMPS every turn of the way. I mean, the "pinkydemon" is one of the most iconic enemies in the original, and they put all of half a dozen of them in Doom 3. That's crap.

There are a few exceptions that I still like and enjoy to this day, but unless somebody really sells me on it being unique and innovative, I very rarely explore new anime or manga these days. And unfortunately, as long as the market keeps demanding the same thing over and over again, that's what the market will deliver.

I don't play sports games much, but I much prefer unique game soundtracks over licensed music. Some greats have already been mentioned (will some of you stop hugging Square's nuts already?), but others like Hip Tanaka and Tim Follin have been woefully omitted.

On another note, I'm with everybody else who's wondering why good ol' water isn't on this list. I cut down on drinking juice, tea and coffee and completely eliminated soda from my diet, and started drinking water all the time instead. I lost almost 20 pounds within a few months just by doing that, and if you're not dumb enough to keep buying bottled water constantly (use a Pur/Brita filter and keep a water bottle on you!) it's far cheaper as well.

And pomegranite juice winning this is mostly hilarious. It may do this, it could do that, but what it'll certainly do is hit your a) wallet and b) waistline, unless you buy fairly specialized drinks or prepare your own. One small container of POM has just as much sugar as a can of Coke, for crying out loud!

Me, I'll take a quiet day on the beach, followed by beer & brats back home, over the Taste no matter what.

Seriously, Robot Dick (haw!) versus Robot Nixon. I'd pay serious money to see that.

Of course, this all comes with the caveat that drinking more than one or two beers per day comes with its own negative health effects.

Besides, if you want a really egregious disservice to one of Moore's original works, try The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Bleugh.

Minority Report wasn't a terrible movie, but it lacked a lot of the stuff that made Philip K. Dick's original short story so great.

I haven't seen the Dune movie in a long time, so I can't make any really good judgments of it. However, I would have loved to have seen the original Dune movie that was to be made with H.R. Giger design, a Pink Floyd soundtrack, and Salvador Dali as Shaddam IV.

I like the novel Starship Troopers, but I love the movie as an over-the-top parody/satire of the extreme military state.

And I actually enjoyed I, Robot, although I completely disconnected myself from any pretensions of accuracy to Asimov's source material and just thought of it as a summer popcorn flick loosely based around the Three Laws.

Come on, guys. There's material that's far more ripe for panning than some of the entries on this list. Some of these just sound like you were trying to stir things up.

"And at our low new rates, it only cost [X] per day-"
"Wait, does it come with bread?"
"Uhhhh, no, but-"
"How do you expect to sell newspapers if they don't come with bread?"
---
"So, sir, what's your favorite section of the newspaper?"
"The bread section. Especially if there's a good article on banana bread."

And so on and so forth. I felt kind of bad leading the poor girl on for a good ten minutes, but it was worth doing once.

I have to admit, though, it's kind of hilarious that Giz just made a news article about a mod from two years ago.