name the thing that had the most influence on you

[xcalibur]

i want to know what the thing is that affected you the most
i dont mean politically or socially
i mean personally
affected YOU

my thing would have to be this poster that i saw for this game
before i saw it i was just a regular kid, listening to rap, playing football and raising an eyebrow at gameboys and generally what wasnt considered cool by my friends
buit after i saw it...
it was this AWESOME frikking knight in massive black and gold with this awesome looking sword in his hand
and on the lower area was all in gold letters

XCALIBUR

i cant seem to find the pic on google since i guess it was never popular

since then i was into games and as you can see from my nick its stuck with me ever since

 

[Opium]

Perhaps the first time I saw Pete Murray perform 'So Beautiful'. I was just so inspired by that song that I started playing the guitar just because of it. It also started my love for music.

Now I have my lovely pride and joy, a Cort Electric Acoustic guitar and I've been playing every day for a few years. I love it

 

[Smuff]

The first time I heard The Sisters of Mercy "First&Last&Always" album.
Still love it to this day, 20+ years on.

and the birth of my son (of course)

 

[sanchoquo]

Zak McKracken on the Commodore 64,
My dad won it on a radio competition and it opened my eyes to video games, especially point and click.
every year after that my birthday presents were always one point and click adventure, I worked my way through the entire lucasarts collection before moving on to Simon the Sorceror, and then Broken Sword

I also remember playing Lost in Time 1+2, an adventure game with video cutscenes to show you the action, which has just been supported by ScummVM in the SVN, when I saw that it made my day.

aside from that I guess I was most influence by my dad, His kindness and general interests and hobbies have always been vast, and always included me.
now at the age of 21, I see that if I turn out anything like my dad then Im a good person. and I couldnt ask for anything more than that

 

[Veho]

Gravity. It's always had a big influence on me.










Sorry to be trivialising the topic, but this was too good to miss.

 

[jimmy j]

The first time I heard Pink Floyd's The Wall. I was just a 4 year-old kid digging around in a cupboard for toys when it came on the radio. That's the moment when I really started to appreciate music.

 

[FAST6191]

When I was a very little kid (about 3) I was given some experiments books/kits, fair enough the grape the lego brick and the marble float at different levels but it was not until my dad asked why does it do that?

From pretty much then onwards I have pulled everything apart/got schematics (and learnt to understand them) and figured out how it works before tweaking it to make it better/ more to my tastes. The only problem with that for me is that is enough for me, when it comes to exams/tests/certification I could not really care less.

Although that pretty much sums up what I do peoples musical influences here seem to be popular, Black Sabbath: Iron Man is my musical influence (apparently it was my pre-natal tune of choice as well). Tom Waits also gets a nod here, there is little more relaxing than Tom Waits to me.

Computer games: I had played games for years before this happened but I saw a 6 second clip of Mario 64 on the old UK tv show Gamesmaster (it was the series when they were at a beach for anyone wondering), that stuck with me.
Also my first real experience rom hacking (I only rewrote a section of a final fantasy script) but that stuck as well.

 

[RayorDragonFall]

As weird/sad as it may sound, the thing that has had the most influence on me is being bullied. It was hell, I've been spat on, pushed down the stairs, insulted, laughed at, been threatened, excluded, etc... I tried talking to the teachers and to my parents but it didn't change. The teachers didn't do anything.
It made a dent on my self esteem that I think is never going to go away. I lost all confidence in myself and I started to fail. Not because I couldn't, but because I didn't believe that I could do it. I stopped believing in myself, it was like being dead but living on. I lost a lot of friends because of a certain test, they couldn't continue studying where I did. They were like my last connection to true friendship and I lost that too. I was alone.

A few teachers convinced me I couldn't pass that test some friends failed and I didn't even try to enter the test, so I repeated the year at music school. Then when after the holidays I went back, this other teacher said: Why are you here? You could have passed. And I realized that it wasn't only the test, it was me. I didn't pass because I didn't at least try to take it on.

A few years later...

I sometimes still have trouble at school, but now I stand up for myself a lot more. It looks like I've been tagged as a "rebel/rough" than as a "weirdo". Sincerely, I still think that the popular kids think I'm weird, but I couldn't give a shit about them, I even slapped one in front of everyone when he tried to steal from me. I'm very different to everyone else, and I have to be careful about that because I don't want too much attention on myself/being bullied again.

I've passed that test. And not only that, now I play electric guitar apart from piano. I failed this years piano (4/10) but did very well on everything else (Musical theory, singing, rhythm (sp?), dictation etc 9/10). I plan to do 2 years in one to catch up.

I still have problems with my friends, but thats because their a lot more childish than me. Pain made me grow up very very fast.

And I never give up, you can ask anyone that really knows me that I've been through a lot. Recently the death of my uncle and I might still have low self esteem sometimes, but I always fought back, and thats why I'm still here. I know that if I put my 100% into something I can do pretty much anything, it's just about how much you want to work. I'm very stubborn about my beliefs, I guess thats another reason why they couldn't kill my personality totally.

So there you go. I'm actually glad that I was bullied. It changed me, and I want to believe it's for the better. From an innocent, a bit too full of herself, a little selfish, but other than that a nice kid, to a still very naive but kinda wise in her own weird way, a lot more humble but scarred and that has discovered that helping other people actually makes her happier than having everything to be perfect, because she isn't perfect.

Edit:
Looks like everyone is posting about games and music, so there ya go:
Games: That has to be when I first played Mario on my new game boy pocket when I was little lol.
Music: I always liked music, I listen from classical to rap to rock to electronic, anything, but the thing that influenced me, thats a part of me, well, thats MAKING music.
As for tv: No lagman, it's not Loving Annabelle, it's Willow and Tara from Buffy the Vampire Slayer

. Made me realize that well, what I am isn't a bad thing.

 

[flai]

Have to agree with Rayor, I was severly bullied too, still am to some extent and it has had an effect on me.

 

[lagman]

Well it's kinda hard for me to make a story like Amy did, so it will be a succession of words and sentences.

My first videogame a labyrinth game for the Atari, that awesome Air Hockey table game that my parent's gave me, Fatima

 

[RayorDragonFall]

....I think Susana is pedogirl.

 

[hobotent]

As bad as it sounds, disciplinary beatings as a little kid. I don't even remember what they were for, I just remember that I really watched myself for what I did afterwards, and now being in high school and seeing how spoiled everyone is and just how badly some of the people act, I'm glad that my parents did that. Even seeing my 2 youngest sisters (out of 8 siblings) that didn't get beaten at all for anything, I can see the difference. Haha, you guys probably think this is so weird, but I'm so much of a better person today in my opinion. I like, don't even swear at all, even around friends and I listen to everything my parents say, just as examples.

 

[dg10050]

Yet you still pirate roms.

I know, I know, you don't pirate, you're just here for the community, just like everyone else.

 

[RayorDragonFall]

Lagman you suck for thinking edit 88.

 

[Pigwooly]

The post said things, so I'm not including people or events, but it's still hard to pick just one.

Calvin and Hobbes- for making me fall in love with a form of visual storytelling for the first time, led me to my profession (animator)

They Might Be Giants- for making me realize I'd never like the popular stuff other kids liked (gangster rap) and therefore showing me I would have to march to a different drum than everyone else

Punk Rock- for showing me that the less I tried to hide that I was a weirdo and the more I flaunted it the less I would get bullied in school and the happier I'd be for the rest of my life

 

[beautifulbeast]

1. Bodybuilding: My parent's failed to give me the lesser sense of discipline mainly because my father acted as a dictator and that never works but, when I started with bodybuilding I learned many things, like that you have to do things not to please others, but because your results depend on how much effort you put in whatever you are doing and this is the same with all aspects of life. Other lessons learned from bodybuilding?
That I could beef up and receive complements from everyone despite constantly getting bad marks in PE in hi-school just a couple of years before.
The power of mind over body.
Be humble and learn from others that know more than yourself.
A whole lot about nutrition and how everything you get into your body has an effect.
That I'm able.
2. Final Fantasy VII: I had a Master System and then a Genesis/MegaDrive when I was a kid, but completely skipped two generations after that until some months ago when I got a NDS. What kept me conscious about videogames and the art involved in them was mainly memories of having played FF7 in a borrowed PSX.

 

[leetdude_007]

Discipline, Introspection, and Patience.

Influenced by Legos and my Biology teacher in grade school. I'm not kidding.

 

[dg10050]

Heh, my Honors Biology teacher from last year had quite a lasting impression on me as well. He taught the class like it was a freaking college class, even though we were 9th graders, but I swear to god I'll never look at science the same way again. I mean the guy was taking graduate courses on 'knowledge'. >_>
We didn't even use the textbook, since he basically told us on the first day of school that it was a piece of crap. My final exam was three questions long. Those three questions determined 15% of my grade, and they were over the entire year of stuff. God was that scary. :'(

 

[tjas]

When I saw the acoustic gig of noel gallagher (songwriter/guitarist/vocals of Oasis) I really wanted to play guitar, so I bought myself an acoustic guitar and started listening to wonderwall over and over untill I could play it correct

But thats several years ago! And tomorrow I'm going to buy my first electric guitar

Thanks Noel! You rock

 

[djgarf]

The first time I heard Pink Floyd's The Wall. I was just a 4 year-old kid digging around in a cupboard for toys when it came on the radio. That's the moment when I really started to appreciate music.

yeh pink floyd's the wall was wot really got me interested in music and music is a really big and important part of my life
also getting my atari 2600 (my first games console),ahh the memories of frogger,pacman and pitfall