Amazon Gift Card&Item Ideas for Anne's 14th Birthday

Happy 14th birthday to my niece Anne! I had no idea what would be a good gift for a 14 year old girl, but I'm confident an Amazon.com gift card accompanied by a list of awesome Amazon items will be better than any gift I could have gotten anyway.

There is one item that you must buy! I mean it, Anne, you better buy this--and read it! Yes, it is a book, but don't worry, it isn't political :D It is called I Was Blind But Now I See by James Altucher. The book's official description is:

"We've been brainwashed. We need to acknowledge this. We need to recognize who has been doing the brainwashing and work towards reversing its effects. Then, building from the core, we can learn who we really are, get success, wealth, and finally happiness. This book lays out the techniques to escape the zombie recruitment machine, expanding our personal frontiers, and finding the tools to build up the wealth of happiness inside."

I think the chapter 'The 10 Commandments of James-ism' (or Anne-ism in your case) is especially interesting. Altucher also argues against going to college - and I do think he is right that many people currently going to college would be better off doing other things. If you want to have a career in medicine, law, engineering, etc that is one thing, but going into debt for $100,000 to get a degree in interpretive dance or sociology is not the best way to go.

You can learn advanced science and mathematics for free online using things like Khan Academy (see their YouTube channel here). Science may not always be that interesting to me, but I thought you might be interested in this book, called Theo Gray's Mad Science: Experiments You Can Do At Home - But Probably Shouldn't

With the almost limitless opportunities for learning that the internet provides, we all can do something like this: Thomas Suarez is a 6th grade student who has developed applications/apps for the iPhone, and has established his own company.

Its always good to have a knife (in this case, Swiss Army) on you--unless you're at school, maybe? Check the rules on that--or just don't get caught :)

Probably the most awesome (and most expensive) item is the New Trent External Battery Pack, which will charge pretty much any portable electronic device, like your cell phone or iPad. There are several different versions of this, but here is the one with the biggest battery--and price--at $76.95.

And I know you just got a new backpack, but I couldn't resist showing you this Super Mario Koopa Shell plush backpack - one of several Amazon items from the sweet site http://thisiswhyimbroke.com/ :D

Another item you probably won't see anywhere else is one of these Platypus collapsible water bottles. After you drink all the water, it will collapse flat so it doesn't take up as much space, which is nice if you like to try to bring everything you own everywhere with you like I do

This is just scratching the surface of what is available on Amazon. Of course there is pretty much any article of clothing, movie, music, or book you can think of too. Also, you can buy the digital versions of many books for as little as 99 cents and read it using the Kindle app on your iPad or iPhone. You might want to wait a while before placing an order so you can try to browse around and see what else they have to offer. And if you find anything cool, let me know about it! I hope this will help make your 14th birthday your best birthday yet--until next year's that is :)