People, mostly.
Anyone who's been around me much lately knows that Barack Obama is my "pick" to be our next president. Here he is after winning big in South Carolina:
I've found that listening to a Bach fugue is the best way to keep the voices in my head busy. For me, there is no higher ecstasy than listening to Glenn Gould play a four or five-voiced fugue in a minor key. Less intense, although entirely appreciated, forms of ecstasy include Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, NIN, Tom Lehrer, Nickelcreek (NOT Nickelback!), Beck, Weezer, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Lily Allen, Johhny Hartman, Cathering Bott, The Knife, Bjork, and Gillian Welch.
Let's see, I tend not to be obsessive enough about favorites in any category to remember them off-hand, but a few great films that occur to me right now are Pulp Fiction, Sideways, Annie Hall, Amelie, Million Dollar Baby, Unleashed, Donnie Darko, As Good As It Gets, The Big Lebowsky, Kill Bill (both parts in one sitting), Heat, The Departed, Half Nelson, Little Miss Sunshine, and 32 Short Films About Glenn Gould.
What, people WATCH THIS STUFF?! Okay, I admit I'm a bit of a junkie myself. In fact, I've been known to derive intense pleasure from Southpark and various Adult Swim shows (esp. FAMILY GUY) from time to time. My current favorite show on television is the BOONDOCKS, which plays on Adult Swim from time to time.
Sadly, I haven't really had time to read anything other than my textbooks lately.
In no particular order, I look up to Glenn Gould, Abraham Lincoln, Einstein, Leonardo Da Vinci, Benjamin Franklin, Isaac Newton, Karl Marx, James Augustus Henry Murray, Bill Moyers, Sir Anthony Hopkins, Gary Vaynerchuk, and Quentin Tarantino.