1KM your Mom sounds awesome, we should get her to go educate NOLA's mom.
Alex, you keep saying you aren't into knives so we should talk about what knives do and how they do it instead of airing personal preference like it mattered.
Check out
Wikipedia's article on blades, don't pay attention to any of it but the section on "Knife Blade Profiles (Patterns)"
Notice that most dudes are recommending a 'regular' blade profile while some are with the very similar 'drop point' style, the one outlier being 1KM who's Mom prefers the radical inverse curve of the Spiderco. Also notice the lack of ninja bullshit, I am proud that no one railed about how awesome the tanto profile is.. it isn't, get over it.
The reason that most of us carry the same blade profile is that it does the most for us. Whether it be scrapping, cutting, picking, prying, slashing or cutting the regular and drop point profiles do it all. One area where there is some difference is picking, like pulling splinters, a well maintained drop point is better because it maintains a smaller sharper tip.
Truth be told most of us didn't grow up with lock blade knives though and I don't think you should either. I think you should have to put up with the bullshit we did!
I remember the Old Timers, Shrades, Case and Bucks I've owned very well, they had a blade that matched the task no matter what the task was and they instilled the inherent usefulness of a knife to me. They also taught me to slash not stab. You see the old ones didn't lock open, you had to be careful with that or you would cut the fuck out of yourself! But it taught lessions that you can't learn without doing. To this day I don't trust a locking knife to stay open and if I need a knife that won't fold I get my sheath knife for it.
What none of these guys will tell you is that a locking blade is only useful for stabbing tires and remember to always stab the tire on the side wall on the side of the rim not over and never under.
Eitherway I would recommend that you go spend $10-$15 on an Old Timer and then cut the fuck out of yourself a couple of times. Once you've spent some time with those three blade profiles you will be in a better spot to decide for yourself what you do and don't like and you will have a legit old man's pocket knife too! [url=http://www.freesmileys.or