Books

Most of the books I read are How to books or instructional books,  so all of these books will be just that. Also I have read all of these books recently, in the last year or two.

1. Millionaire by thirty: The quickest path to early financial independence. Now by the title you might be thinking "Oh this is just another get rich quick scheme." But actually it teaches you things like how to budget for bills and expenses every month. It also shows strategies for safe investing with a good return. I feel that since reading this i'm better at handling money and i am furthering my reading on investing for my future. 

http://www.amazon.com/Millionaire-Thirty-Quickest-Financial-Independence/dp/0446556017/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1296084676&sr=8-1

2. The way of Zen. My freshman year in college I took a world religions class and enjoyed it very much. My favorite part was learning about Buddhism, more specifically Zen Buddhism. I like the teachings of just being a good person to everyone and enjoying all the little things in life. This book helped me understand Zen better than before i read it. 

http://www.amazon.com/Way-Zen-Alan-W-Watts/dp/0375705104/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1296087314&sr=8-1

3. Phil Gordon's Little Green Book Of Poker. I started playing poker in high school and was instantly drawn to it. I won the first game i ever played with my friends and after playing for a year or two i wanted to take the next step and learn more. This book made me the poker player i am today. It doesn't tell you how to play it more gives you the right mind set and gives you things to think about in all situations of every hand.  This book definitely took my game to the next level and i still read it today and learn new things every time.

 http://www.amazon.com/Phil-Gordons-Little-Green-Book/dp/1416903674/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1296087058&sr=1-1

These three books have helped me in one way or another throughout my life and i know they will keep helping me in the future. 

Media impact

One day I was browsing the web and came across a story of a 17 year old kid who killed is mom and shot his dad because they took halo 3 away from him. He tried pleading insanity because he didn't know people don't re-spawn after their killed in real life. It was rejected. Over the past couple years I've come across many cases of kids killing someone and saying that they thought it was OK or that they didn't know they were in real life. In most cases I do believe that these kids couldn't tell the difference, but the video games are not the problem its usually the individual not being able to tell the difference.

http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2008/12/boy_killed_mom_and_shot_dad_ov.html

media autobiography

I think the first media I can remember being introduced to was recordings and radio. As an infant my mom would play 70's and 80's hair bands music. I'm glad she did because now music is a big part of my life. Next was probably movies, I started out with Disney classics and started moving to action flicks, horrors and basically everything. I try to watch as many movies as I can. Journalism is one of the majors I'm considering because I would love being a movie critique or just write about movies . I started reading magazines and the newspaper in high school and still do today. My first magazines were sports illustrated and video game magazines. The internet has probably had the largest impact on my life. Being able to get information so fast and on any subjects I want has always intrigued me. It kind of goes hand in hand with technology which is one of my interests. The two majors I am considering both deal with media. Journalism is for writing about technology, movies, or video games. The other is computer science because I want to be in the development process of technology, movies or video games. All of the aspects have effected my life and I enjoy all of them and what they have to offer.