Well... I'm not going to actually meet anyone while I'm here hunched over the keyboard. Perhaps I should go out.
Beethoven, Kate Bush, Elvis Costello, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Michael Franti, Macy Gray, Nina Hagen, P.J. Harvey, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Thelonious Monk, Morel, Morphine, Van Morrison, Bob Mould/Sugar, New Order, Parliament/Funkadelic, REM, The Replacements/Paul Westerburg, Silversun Pickups, Patti Smith, The Smiths, Steely Dan/Donald Fagen, Sekou Sundiata, Cassandra Wilson.
Little Miss Sunshine, Rang De Basanti, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Lord of the Rings (all), films by Alfred Hitchcock (Vertigo, North by Northwest, Rear Window, Rope), films by Stanley Kubrick (Dr. Strangelove, Spartacus, A Clockwork Orange, 2001: A Space Odyssey), Hedwig and the Angry Inch, The Iron Giant, The Fifth Element, Brazil, Austin Powers, October Sky, Amadeus, Blade Runner, Pi, Twelve Monkeys, Spirited Away, Grave of the Fireflies, Young Frankenstein, Blazing Saddles, The African Queen, Lawrence of Arabia, Touch of Evil, Metropolis, Svengali, The Great Dictator.
Don't watch much, but I think two of the best comedies anywhere are: Little Mosque on the Prairie (Canada), and The IT Crowd (BBC).
Aztec by Gary Jennings. Snow Crash, The Diamond Age, Cryptonomicon, and Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson. Gravity’s Rainbow, Vineland, and The Crying of Lot 49, by Thomas Pynchon. Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak. Galileo's Daughter by Dava Sobel. Neuromancer, Idoru, and Virtual Light, by William Gibson. Chaos by James Gleick. A Forest of Kings by Linda Schele. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. On the Road by Jack Kerouac.