Teh'intraweb enables things like Soundclick and musicradar to exist, for which I will be eternally grateful :)

Musical influences? Too many to mention (but also including the traffic noise outside my flat, and the bird sanctuary outside work, HONK!)
Guitar influences? Frank Zappa, John McLaughlin, Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Al DiMeola, Guthrie Govan, Jimi Hendrix, Yngwie J Malmsteen (no laughing at the back, thank you!), and more lately some of the fantastic guitar players here on SC.

Squier Strat with a Fred in the bridge, a generic HB in the Neck, coil taps (and a jigsawed headstock!!!)
Washburn MG-70 HSS with a Floyd Rose
Dunlop 1mm little Stubby
Dunlop 212 pinky slide
Dunlop Volume
Dunlop Cry-Baby
(Hmm, developing a theme here, lol)
Monkey FX Valve-Sporker
BOSS OD-2 and DD-6, Behringer stereo Chorus
Fender Champ
Shure SM57
Line6 GuitarPort
Pentium PC with Sonar
M-Audio Audiophile 192 soundcard
M-Audio Keystation 61es MIDI keyboard

If you'd told me 20 years ago all this would be available, in my home, I'd have thought you were mad!
So glad I would have been wrong :)