TIGSource Forums

So I was thinking that it would be interesting to hear what everyone here has been influence by or considers and important in their life, including though not necessarily video games. This isn't a top ten favorite list, or top ten influences, I'm hesitant to say "Top" at all, because although it would be nice if we could easily pick out the top ten most important things that have affected us in our lives, it's not, and I'm not even sure it's useful to do so.  so please present ten different things, including books,movie, video games, people, whatever, that you considering influential in your life or just something you happen to like a lot, even if you can't say it's had a noticeable influence in your life.  I would even say even stuff you don't like so much anymore would be game, as long as it had once been important.

The only restriction I'd suggest is that no "My mom" or other only personal answers, because we all have those and it doesn't tell us much!


my important ten:

the stories of Ray Carver
Bruce Lee
King Harvest (song by The Band)
Earthbound
Chinatown
Old School (novel by Tobias Wolff)
the stories of Dan Choan


hm, this is hard...

Dark Tranquillity
Breizh/Brittany
SNES
Video Game Music
Alfred J. Kwak
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
In Flames
All books by Walter Moers
Chronicles of The Raven/Legends of The Raven (Books by James Barclay)
Magic The Gathering



Oh boy.

Kurt Vonnegut
Man Man
Chrono Trigger
Catch-22
The Daily Show/Colbert Report
Armored Core
Pixar
Haruki Murakami
Tom Waits
Arrested Development

Also this will sound kind of fanboyish but recently the lectures/presentations of Jonathan Blow have been a very inspiring influence.
I dunno what you're talking about with these being hard to come up with, I could easily have added 10 more...

Shit, I could only think of three and they were basically all the same thing.

I'll have to come back when my world becomes less narrow.

Interesting idea.  I'll give my ten.   :gentleman:

Aside from saying art, music, and video games as a whole...

NES
PlayStation 2
Kirby's Adventure
Sonic the Hedgehog (Classic Sega Genesis Sonic, not new...shit Sonic.)
Mega Man
Kingdom Hearts
Nine Inch Nails (Most inspiring music ever.)
Tetsuya Nomura
Shigeru Miyamoto
Disney/Pixar

StarTropics
Naomi Novik/Temeraire
Nintendo DS
IPod
Phantasy Star 4
Summer Camp
Heroes
Rock Band
La Mulana

One more. Hmmmm...

Derek Yu :-*


...  :eyebrows:

In no particular order:

Super Mario 64 (game)
Grandaddy (band)
the "Redwall" series by Brian Jacques (books)
Ender's Game, Ender's Shadow, and their subsequent sequels. (books)
Ants (insects)
Shigeru Miyamoto (dude)
Chess (game)
Pixelation (forum)
Wallace & Gromit (animations)
Cowboy Bebop (animations)

Mario Bros./Bros. 3/World/World 2/64/Sunshine/Galaxy
Donkey Kong Country 1/2/3
Tool
The Polyphonic Spree
Douglas Adams and his writing
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Game Maker

..that's all I got right now.  This is much tougher then I thought it'd be.

people only list!


Shigeru Miyamoto, for shaping my childhood
Philippe Stark, for keeping it simple
Trent Reznor, for the teen angst
Jonathan Ive, for keeping it simple
Ian Curtis, for having killed himself
Tim Burton, for weird childhood movies
Hunter S. Thompson, for the drugs
Fumito Ueda, for design by subtraction
Quentin Tarantino, for the genres
Hayao Miyazaki, for the blues skies and fresh air

Experiences, memories

There was a trailer in the forest. Used to belong to an old dead couple, but it was on my family's land so I moved in.

Woke up covered in ants.

The food pantry. I was out of place there. An old lady wouldn't let me leave--I wanted to leave when I got enough food to sustain myself for a while, but she wouldn't let me leave. Brought me into a back room where they kept a bunch of clothes. Measured my waist, every time I tried to leave she wouldn't let me, she'd cut me off midsentence. Fished through pants, couldn't find any small enough around the waist and long enough. Eventually brought out an old pair of sweatpants.

Woke up with a mouse looking down at me from the windowsill, curiously.

Sitting naked in the lawn when I was four years old, smiling at the camera. I don't remember the actual experience, but I remember the photograph. Whole thing was tinted green, making the windowsill on the house behind me look an unnatural shade of blue. Same color as the shelves in the food pantry. I bet if I could see in through that darkened window I'd see myself, pawing through corn flakes from the year 2005. Wonder what my naked young self would think of that.

Watching as Captain Jellyhair tried to run his wood mill. He had the guards taken off, because he felt safety equipment was just for show. He sat on one end of the log to keep it level as the bandsaw made its way towards his nuts.

Saving his two year old daughter from the wild mustang. Pulled her away really quick. Wonder what would have happened if I wasn't there.

Chainsaws. I remember removing the drive sprocket and seeing it was completely dinged to hell. Probably would have broke the chain had I used it anymore. That would have been it for me. "Chaps may be hot, but so is blood running down your leg."

Slapping a c-note down on the bartop, looking coldly into Willy the bartender's eyes and saying, in my most hard boiled voice, 'gimme some snickers.' Receiving my two candy bars and ninety eight dollars change, walking coolly out the door.

The cold and rainy day that my truck caught fire.

Crazy!  I'm a huge fan of that movie too!  (I'm assuming you must love it if it's on this list).  There's something just...perfect about it...

I guess consider that the first thing on my list, here's are a few other random ones:

Lego, for an awesome childhood

Books by Douglas Coupland, for being funny and serious all at the same time, and for helping me to better understand humanity (I think?)

Hikes in Edmonton's North Saskatchewan river valley, for allowing me to see beyond our narrow artificial human world and into a far more natural and perfect one, and for allowing me to feel the glorious feeling of exploration and adventure

Knytt Stories, for being the only game I've played where I've felt that glorious feeling of exploration and adventure (not as great as nature, but it's the only game that's earned the right to even be compared)

Henri Bergson, for his interesting metaphysical idea of Duration, as opposed to our usual causality laden view of time

Jesus, Tolstoy, and Ganhdi, for displaying the viability and importance of non-resistance to violence

Santiago Calatrava, for creating architecture that respects the fact that we're living in the 21st century, not the 20th

The BBC, for maintaining a high degree of journalistic integrity and providing me with news that I can trust in this where news media is dominated by spin and falsehood

TIGSource, for all of the interesting discussion I've been a part of here, and for being such a supportive and positive community (sorry to be corny but it's true)

Pencil & Paper
Pink Floyd
The Woods
Hideo Kojima
Bathroom (that's where I get most of my ideas :D)
Intel Pentium III 550
Corel
Lego
Coimbra
Sega Saturn

This list makes me feel Shallow ._.

I get 90% of my ideas when I am either in the shower or on the toilet. ;D

You should get one of these:

(http://rvtravel.com/blog/rvnow/uploaded_images/bath-789584.jpg)

Who knows what wonders you might be inspired to create while seated upon such a contraption.  :o

Uh, hard.
No specific order, neither in importance nor time -

The artist Momus
The movie Cha No Aji
The best friend Julian
The best friend Steffen
The console Nintendo 64
The band Fun Lovin' Criminals
The transportation tool bicycle
The TV channel Nickelodeon (95-98)
The comics and characters by Disney
The various torrent sites of the internet

My mind just imploded

- Computer
(Packed with the proper software, of course) Best tool ever.

- Pornography
Make your own assumptions.  :D

- Internet
#1 source of friends, dates, research, fun, job, laughs and tears. Can't imagine my life without this great invention. :)

- Videogames
I always was the videogame expert. When people thought about videogames they thought about me, they defined me somehow.

- Philosophy/Personal Development books
Some find the former boring and the latter cheesy. I can say they can change the way you see the world. Forever.

- Radiohead
I have this need for negativity in my life, cheers do no good to me, I need someone to tell me I can't, that I'm not good enough, that I suck so I get pissed and prove' em wrong. Hence I enjoy sad or angry music.

- Exercise
I once used to be a fat and weak kid, but exercise changed my life. It makes you feel alive! And boosts up your energy and confidence.

- Movies
Very good source of inspiration if you can tell the good from the crappy ones. They can make you cry or dream like very few other medium could. Powerful storytellers.

- Miyamoto, Chris Crawford, Suda Goichi
Each has something I admire. They are all very different from each other, yet they have a very interesting perspective when it comes to designing games. Suda has still to prove his worth, but Killer 7 made enough shit for me to respect him. It took balls to go forward with a project like that and I loved several of the things he implemented in there.

Hard to make list, I'll regret what I wrote here tomorrow morning. :tired:

-Doom II and Dune II. First game I played, shaped some things, and defined my relation with games.

-H.P. Lovecraft. Few things are as important to me as Lovecraft, the Cthulhu Mythos, and everything they imply.

-David Lynch. Blue Velvet, Lost Highway, and later Eraserhead and Mullholand Drive.

-First time I payed attention to Guided by Voices, listening Goldheart Mountaintop Queen Directory. Music was never the same.

-MTV Oddities. Watching Aeon Flux, The Maxx, Beavis and Butthead, and Ren & Stimpy, as a child.

-The Internets. Not just having internet connection, but being a part of the whole stuff.

-J.G. Ballard.

-Reading Preacher, Sandman and Transmetropolitan. Affected my taste in the years to come.

-Jonathan Richman.

-Stanley Kubrick

-When I discovered 80's french videogames.

Let's continiue...


I try not to take this too serious...

1.) Video Games Magazines since 1998. I learned reading with them and due to their existence I know pretty much everything about (at least popular/important) gaming culture. Well... okay, my knowledge gets incomplete for 1985 and earlier.
2.) Owning a Playstation 2 since 2003 and how being able to actually buy and play the games I read about in the recent issues of video game magazines excited me. I felt like I was... participating in this whole culture for the first time in my life.
3.) Discovering Emulation in 2004. NES, SNES, Gameboy (Advance), Mega Drive... for free... it was crazy. Especially the first weeks after I discovered the whole thing.
4.) The Curse of Monkey Island and how the music and artstyle still touch me today.
5.) Final Fantasy 7, 8, 9  and how their "difficulty" raped me when I was a child.
6.) Composing/making music (it basically kept my self-consciousness alive during my 7th, 8th and 9th years at school... when the other kids were the biggest pricks ever)
7.) Everything Renaissance... the music, the art. My parents use(d) to take me to numerous concerts and now I really can't live without renaissance music.
8.) A range of japanese games... Metal Gear Solid series, Shadow of the Colossus, Digital Devil Saga... the more "awkward" stuff if you will.
9.) Late 90s music (like Red Hot Chili Peppers, Rage Against the Machine... they're not my favourite musicians (anymore) but they remind me of my childhood).
10.) The things I played with the most as a child: Lego, ballpoint pens and empty notebooks... stuff like that.

and 11.) Not having had a GameBoy and are N64 in the late 90s/early 00s.  All the kids had one of those things and Pokemon (Blue edition), Mario Land et cetera. My parents refused to buy me one but went for the PSX for some reason (christmas of 2000) and so I'm not a Nintendo-kid today... The GameBoy-thing was a trauma, though... well... 2 years ago I went and bought a GameBoy-Mini, Pokémon, Zelda, Mario Land, Metroid, Tetris and so on for 20€ (my own money)... my parents never got to know but it finally cured my trauma.  :D  Crazy shit.

important stuff in my life, roughly in order of appearance,

videogames, cartoons, tv, movies, novels, comics, music, and other media (1981+)*
school, school friends (1984+)
starting a journal, later continued as online journal (1990+)
getting a computer and learning to program games in QBASIC and then c (1994+)
the internet, the ohrrpgce online community, online friends (1999+)
philosophy, particularly epistemology, nietzsche, etc. (2001+)
indie games, tigsource, tim w's blog, indie games community (2006+)
immortal defense (2007+)
minarchism, voluntaryism (2008+)
u.g. krishnamurti and the radical honesty books (2009+)

that leaves a lot out but it's 10

*was born in 1978 but the first actual media I remember is from 1981; i'm sure it started earlier tho.

- zx spectrum
- andrei tarkovsky
- radiohead
- autechre
- new york city
- akira
- macbooks
- stimulants
- blade runner
- love

 - Alfred J. Kwak, childhood hero, killer stories and songs too (TV series by Herman van Veen)
 - Films: Star Wars(the only trilogy) for being so imaginative and Donnie Darko, perfectly eery, trippy, scientific and realistic
 - Japanese Animation: Akira, Spirited Away, Fullmetal Alchemist, expressive, intense, magical
 - Super Mario 64, Super Smash Bros Melee, Mario Kart 64, thank you Miyamoto and Sakurai.
 - Jonathan Blow, Jason Rohrer, showing there are other ways.
 - Pokemon Trading Cards,Diablo 2, World of Warcraft,, my addictions so far. I don't drink, sip coffee or smoke, so maybe that's why.
 - Chris Cunningham + Michel Gondry: fucked up videos, in a lovely way.
 - James Brown, System of a Down, the Prodigy, Radiohead, LCD Soundsystem, not everything, but the best is the best.
 - Discovery Channel, National Geographic, David Attenborough, curiously wonderful

Oh, almost forgot: fucking LEGO! I made so much stuff, my favorite toy ever!

the industrial process
anterior cruciate ligament
the space programme
fifth metacarpal
rocky
medical science
powdered whey
kazushi sakuraba
socialism
hand wraps

In (roughly) chronological order:


My Sister: I know what the OP said, but I would not be the same person if she were still alive.
The horn: I have played it for about 9 years now, and it's had plenty of time to influence things.
That robotics class I took in high school: made me realize I like EE more than CS.
Cave Story: Introduced me to indie games and inspired me to start making my own games.
Transhumanism and the Singularity: gave me hope. Now I feel crazy but it's really no crazier than any religion.

I know there are more but they aren't coming to me. Maybe later.

-jackie chan

Math.
The existance of Flash.
The sun, and summer, and the smell of recently cut grass.
Books.
The feeling of excitement.
The Ramones.
Ice tea.
Kommunism and death.

lol

These are the ten things that you should care about:

Nature
The dumpy town where I went to college
Mel Brooks
Beer
Being near the ocean
Books, including things by Kurt Vonnegut, Irvine Welsh, Don Delillo
Miles Davis
Dr. Who (and other bad science fiction)
Cheap sensationalism in the media
Jim Hensen

That is all.

The SNES got me hooked on video games.
RPG Maker introduced me to game making and programming.
Cave Story then introduced me to indie gaming, and
TIGSource has been a major part of my life ever since.
Gamma Ray introduced me to metal, which was my first well-defined taste in music.
Slagsmålsklubben (which I discovered through Kinten (http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=652.msg25810#msg25810)) and
Daft Punk (which I discovered through fish, in the same thread (http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=652.msg31052#msg31052)) then changed it drastically.
The Da Vinci Code (yeah, I know) made me question religion for the first time.
reddit also changed my views on many subjects.
College, very recently, helped me to get rid of my overwhelming shyness and become much more social.

spongebob
del toro
thief: the dark project
thief: the metal age
liberals
looking glass studios' demise
grindcore
the view
silence of the lambs
tim and eric awesome show great job

1. Final Fantasy 2/4 - The first game that really touched me as a kid.  I loved Cecil's transformation from Dark Knight into Paladin and his quest to make up for his past actions.
2. The Dragonriders of Pern series by Anne McCaffrey - Maybe not the best series, but it was my first experience with sci fi/fantasy, completely by accident, and gave me a place to escape to throughout my childhood.  Don't know if I would have made it without.
3. NIN - I grew up in a very secluded environment (both physically and emotionally), so I had almost no exposure to music until I was 14, then I had my first relationship and she introduced me to Trent Reznor.  I became a huge music fan since then, and hearing a good beat can cure any of my ills.
4. The Art Institute of Phoenix - Maybe not the school itself, but it was the first time I was able to be around others that shared my interests, eagerness to create, and dreams of making games for a living.  I wouldn't have bloomed into the artist I am now without the friends I made there.
5. The US Air Force - Initially I just needed the money for college, but after I got out and rejoined the civilian sector I realized that it had transformed my self image and the standards of quality I set for myself.
6. My fiance - Restored my faith in women, as I never thought I'd meet someone whom I trusted utterly and completely.  Every day I am constantly amazed that some beautiful woman who is the opposite of me in every way is somehow in love with me.
7. My mom - She's led a hard life and made a lot of sacrifices so my sister and I could get out of our small town and experience the world.
8. San Diego Comic Con - I go every year and seeing the people (especially the indies!) that have used their skills with art/storytelling/etc to touch so many people completely reinvigorates and inspires me.  Almost that time again!
9. The gym - I had terrible issues with my self image growing up, and while in the USAF I started getting in shape and working out. Now I hit the gym 3-5 times a week, and while I'm not HUGE (nor do I want to be), I can still be intimidating when I need to.
10. D&D - Playing with my friends really gave me my first opportunity to express my creativity, and we still talk about our adventures together from time time.

Oh gosh, if this were the top 11, that'd be it.

Video Game Emulation - I would have missed out on hundreds of the best games had it not been for this.

Grandaddy - Music that helped shape me.

K.L. Brewer - a man who (re)introduced me to poetry.

The Redwall books - Made me want to write.

Wallace and Gromit - Made me want to animate.

My Mom - I know you said this don't count but she homeschooled me for 8 years, singlehandedly teaching me practically everything I know and also nurturing my artistic...ness.

Camping/Forests/Nature - my love for each both draws from and feeds my love for the others.

Miyazaki's films - again, made me want to animate.

Highschool - I know others have had tons of bad experiences and horrible memories of highschool but personally it kind of renewed my sense of belonging in humanity, and forced me to be social to an extent I'd never been.

M.C. Escher's work - A constant inspiration and influence to my art.


Ten is not enough; If I could add more I'd definitely say Pixelation and TIGSource. They've been more influential to me than...well frankly more than I'd like to admit.

never finished mossflower.  interesting, these bookssssssss also made me want to write.

battlerager will recognize my IRC nickname, "Dragonene". Because it's almost part of his ten list.

Okay, here we go, in no particular order:

New Model Army (http://www.newmodelarmy.org)
The Fifth Element (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119116/) (well, I suppose Luc Besson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luc_Besson) in general)
Jules Verne (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jules_verne)
The Java4K Contest (http://www.java4k.com)
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Link_to_the_Past)
R. Scott Bakker (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._Scott_Bakker)
Diablo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diablo_(series))
Unreal Tournament (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unreal_tournament)
Douglas Adams (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Adams), and I'd like to make a push for the Dirk Gently books (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirk_Gently)
The Beatles (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_beatles)

That wasn't very hard! I could go on like this forever... There's so much missing from that list. This what you might get if you'd just stick your hand down the bag and pick up a few, I'd hazard... :)

EDIT: Oh, uh, I'm going to add two more. Did you say ten? I heard twelve!

Star Trek (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_trek) (yes, that's right. I grew up watching it, dammit!)
LEGO (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego) (It has to be on this list)

This is a really good idea for a topic!

Wario Land 3
Super Smash Bros. Melee
Super Mario Sunshine
Captain Underpants
Astérix et Obélix
Garfield
LEGO
Galidor
Just For Laughs
OS X

Schoolhouse Rock
Flip-O-Rama
Spy Fox/Freddi Fish/Putt Putt series
City of Light, City of Dark (first real 'graphic novel' I ever read!)
Wall-E
Rayman 2: The Great Escape
Good News for People Who Love Bad News
Grim Fandango
Marionettes
Terry Pratchett (particularly Small Gods- it made me reconsider my whole stance on religion)

lol

Why is that funny? :shrug2:

Post your real top 10, so we can each quote one of them and laugh at what is important to you.

I think he did post his real top 10.

And I think that's funny cause calling Pratchett life-changing seems a bit like calling Douglas Adams or Dan Brown life-changing -- even when it's true it's a bit odd. (And yes, I realize someone called Dan Brown life-changing earlier in this thread. I don't mean that they can't be, just that it's funny to think of them that way.)

I'm irked that you lumped Adams in with Brown there as the two have completely different agendas and writing styles (and I would call Adams life-changing (for me)).

He posted a joke top 10.  It just bugged me that he quotes things that people care a lot about, and follows it with a quick "lol" (he's done it twice in this thread), then doesn't have the balls to post the things he cares about.

No biggie, just bothered me a bit.

Yeah, I'm not saying they can't be, I just meant that part of the reason it's funny is that what some people take to be life-changing others just consider terrible writers. I consider Adams one of the worst writers I've ever read for instance (although his interactive fiction adaption of his first book was okay). To use another writer, it's like someone saying "J.K. Rowling's books changed my life!" -- even when it's true and said seriously, it's hard to take it seriously.

Don't mind the village idiot.

Oh, I agree that for me Rowling was nowhere near life-changing and it's entirely subjective.

I'm just saying it's a douchebag move to quote someone talking about something they love (regardless or your opinion of it), and just follow it with "lol".  If he had posted why he dislikes what they care about then it wouldn't be bad, but "lol" is so dismissive, as if to say "haha look at what this idiot likes".

I agree, that was basically what he was doing, and it was stupid. I just meant to explain possibly why he would find it funny. I too find a lot of the things said in this thread funny, and I'm sure many people find the things I listed funny too, but it'd be pretty rude to tell someone that.

In my defense, I do think Dan Brown is quite mediocre, and it is pretty hilarious that his book had such an impact in my life. 12-year-old non-reader me didn't have much of a taste in books, though.

yep, our younger selves probably all have embarrassing literary tastes -- when I was 14 my favorite author was terry brooks, who I now think writes horribly generic fantasy fiction.

I used to like the Pokemon anime.

I got better.

I can't think of ten things like that. I'll have to put more thought into it.

Aside: I also read The Da Vinci Code in grade 11 and couldn't put it down :P

I think what a lot of the authors named above have is accessibility / readability -- brooks, adams, brown, rowling, pratchett, etc., are all authors that don't require much effort to read. stephen king is another. so another reason it's funny is that it gives the impression that a person doesn't read very much if they choose one of those as their favorite authors (which may or may not be true, but that's the impression it gives). it's like people who say that ayn rand is their favorite philosopher, it makes you think: do you actually read philosophy? sometimes they do and actually do just prefer her over all the others, but more often they just don't read much philosophy.

Speaking of the Da Vinci Code, did anyone play the game based off of it? It was amazingly terrible; the game opened with a stealth level, but if you were caught by a guard, you had to perform a quick-time event to roundhouse kick him. Seriously, Nick Cage's character knows kung-fu in this game, and the guard screams at him in a fake French accent, "Would you like that super-sized?"

they should make a game based on 'the stand' by stephen king, that would be great. although probably not a good idea right now due to the swine flu scare.

They should make a game based on Stand by Me by Stephen King. But just the chain reaction vomiting part.

the idea that when asked about profound formative events or things in one's life the first thing they regurgitate is a list of video games is really funny. divining universal insight from discworld is really funny.

also my list was real; i guess i could break it down? but whatever.

I didn't even realize I'd made a completely different list on the first page way back when this started.

told you his list was real, ymm. i'm not sure why you thought it was a joke? kazushi sakuraba is nobody to laugh at. :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTwy9TdTzGc

terrible example; i am still sore over this stoppage.

it was really horrible watching that dynamite single leg erode over the years

How can Douglas Adams be compared to Dan Brown, Stephen King, etc.? >:(
He's a fantastic writer.

I can't say I understand why people think that, but tastes differ and we shouldn't get so off topic. I admit he's marginally better than Dan Brown, but I'd still place him in the 'better storyteller than he is writer' category.

some people are less cultured than others. in some cases this is willful and calculated but in others it is simply due to exposure or lack thereof. hope this helps.

Becoming a Christian
9 Years in Texas with my best friends Trey and Conrad
My other best friend Billy
Samurai Jack
Marching Band
The Rolling Stones
Going to Japan
The existance of films
My cats
The N64

Awesome topic. I can't believe I missed this.

Person/Thing (explanation/inspiration)

• Cody (deceased sibling, insight into death/religion)
• Being poor/broke all the time (grew up low-class, appreciation/motivation to succeed)
• My parents (treated me as an equal, no rules/complete freedom as a teenager)
• Caroline (girlfriend of 4 yrs; experienced youth, adolescence, sex and jealousy)
• Friends (became strong, social, learned to party, experienced alcohol/drugs)
• Family/Lineage (hard workers, loving family members, my traits were passed down from them)
• Nature (grew up in a small town, beatiful valley, appreciate nature and life)
• Music (always there for me, to cheer me up and sooth my nerves, always more)
• Space/Stars/Univserse (a constant inspiration to me, I can stargaze happily even now)
• Strangers (every person I pass, every smile I get, every new one I meet inspires me further)

In my personal opinion, I would say Douglas Adams is a better comedy writer than he is a story-teller.  The reason that Douglas Adams is so popular is that he packs his books so densely with humorous (I guess this is subjective) which play with logic, physics and religion.  Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is the type of book that I can go back and re-read and notice clever things that can still make me laugh.

(Terry Pratchett also does this, but not with the same density as Douglas Adams.  However he makes up for this, to some extent, by sheer volume of books...)

It's not an issue of lack of exposure.  Two of my other favorite books are Heart of Darkness and Siddhartha.

Anyway, to get things back on topic:

-Legend of Zelda series, particularly Ocarina of Time
-Progressive Rock
-Douglas Adams (particularly Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Restraunt at the end of the Universe, and Dirk Gently)
-Donkey Kong 64
-Heart of Darkness
-Life on Mars (the song)
-Hero (the movie)
-Robotron
-Bohemian Rhapsody (pretty much lead to my taste in music, ie. classic rock with a focus of progressive rock.)
-Other things

Hesse is pretty good. Funny image relating to the german writers (this is not photoshopped):

(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a6/Printing3_Walk_of_Ideas_Berlin.JPG)

Damn i forgot to include music! Overall, music, of all goddamn types, has always had a heavy influence in my life. Sometimes certain songs and scores can help me define days and even weeks. I love music in its broadest aspect.

Wow I really don't understand that :D Douglas Adams writes the best dialogue I have ever read, and his writing has me in simultaneous stitches and awe whenever I go back to it.  Do you read much comedy?

Heart of Darkness is a really great book and I'm sure it's influenced me, but not enough to be on my list.

NES
roguelikes (Rogue, Crawl)
Knytt[ Stories]
Korn
Shpongle
Tarentel
Alice in Wonderland
Simoron (Burlans' framework)
rain
bullies

I consider most things I read to be comedy, whether they were intended as it or not. I find inadvertent comedy to be funnier than the intentional kind.

- Cute things
- Gore
- PETA
- Neon Genesis Evangelion
- Noise
- J-pop
- Isaac Asimov's "Extraterrestrial Civilisations"
- Serial Experiments Lain
- DJ Sharpnel

I took the liberty of interpreting this thread as "Post 10 things you really like", rather than stuff that really influenced me. Some of the things in my list probably has, but it's hardly an exhaustive list of my most memorable experiences. I tried to keep it mostly at forms of entertainment (books/movies/games/music) on purpose, because those can be recommended and enjoyed by others. This is not true for some more personal experiences and relationships.

...I'm not entirely sure why I made this post. Oh well :)

keep it up. funny thread fellas.