I had been asked the question above on my Formspring account and I would really like to take the time to answer it via a blog post. There’s so much I could say, so forgive me if I blabber on a bit too much to answer your question.

Music to me means a LOT. It is my home, my salvation, the place I go to when things go wrong or when I am in need of uplifting my spirits. It’s my desperation, my happiness, one of my best friends and somewhere I go to when I want to be at my most expressive.
Music is empowering, it is influential, it is life-changing, it is self-seeking and it can give me an awareness of what is going on in my life at the moment and what can potentially happen in my life.
I love listening to music, as well as writing and playing music of my own. It inspires me and devotes me to living life.
Each song I write has a meaning, a relation to myself and others, and the way each song is played demonstrates the expression of my feelings.

Music to me is about connecting my ears to my heart, my mind and my soul. Allowing me to create my own meanings and interpretations that initially reflect the reality of our wellbeing in life.

One of my modern day inspirations:

“I love how humbling the pursuit of being an artist is. It teaches me how to lead an extraordinary life that can in some way positively affect the world.” – Miguel Atwood-Ferguson

Two blogs in a row? I think so. At the moment I am keeping myself busy and I have a ton of projects planned and lined up for me over the next year.
One of my plans is to go to a school in Burma and teach young primary school children English. Some may say “Whoa, you’re absolutely crazy. It’s dangerous over there!”. To be fair, Burma had suffered a ton of problems a few years ago and they still suffer many other problems. But why will I sit here, being afraid and choose to live the very average lifestyle? I want to explore and develop other third world countries just the way I develop myself on a day to day basis.
As you sit there, unconsciously, sipping on your coffee, eating your 5-a-day fruits and vegetables, do you ever wonder where that comes from? I do and I totally support Fairtrade, but spending a few extra pence for that bag of coffee does help, but it doesn’t do enough justice. I can’t be superman and save a country or even a town, but at least I can make an attempt to better their lives while I am there for a month.
First step is to earn my TEFL Certificate, which allows me to teach English internationally. I will be going for the 2-day intensive course that would usually take up to 6 weeks. This will be during January. After I achieve that, I am all set and ready to rock. More on this later on.

On another note, over the last month two friends and I, have been planning to make a few feature-length films. We’re still in the process of buying equipment and we should be ready to go by the end of next month. We’re all hands on people with quite creative minds so it should be something to definitely look forward to.
Of course we will be hit by budgets, so it wouldn’t be as epic as an excessive use of CGI style movie but we’re going to deliver some thought provoking, quality material.
A YouTube channel will be set up soon since it will be an affiliation of Undercimsonmoon, but the videos and links will be posted on here once they have been produced.
We already have a great selection of people interested in acting, filming and editing but as we would want to produce a wide selection of material, we would always be happy for other people to get involved and fulfil some of the roles I had just mentioned.

I hope you all look forward to the new developments of these projects and I will be sharing my experiences as thoroughly as I can, till then…later days.

Boom, boom, boom…oh hey! It is me again, writing this long awaited blog post.
I haven’t posted anything since September, so forgive me if I am a bit out of touch. I am just trying to find that warm comfortable spot again…ah, there it is.

As always, there is always drama going on, some which is quite personal and actually quite boring to put into words on here. So I will spare you the details with that. However, I am a firm believer of fate/destiny (whatever you like to call it) and I went to Spain for around two weeks during October. I discovered so much about myself and I truly felt at peace again.
During my stay, I did a lot of songwriting with an average of writing two songs per day. There was just something about Spain that made me want to write so much; it was because of the emotion, the atmosphere and even though I was staying with close ones, I still felt like I was on this lone journey and going through this discovering process.
When I was a lot younger, I got my first acoustic guitar and still to this day I have it. I didn’t take any lessons since at the time, I was only a kid and I wasn’t exactly making money.
I went through different genres of music and became entrenched in Jimi Hendrix. I wanted to play just like him and give away that feeling he gives to everyone who listens to his music. I was incredibly hooked on him because of not only his skills and ability, but the fact he taught himself how to play the guitar so well.
Of course, I play the acoustic guitar which differs from his style of playing but what is notable is, that, by his influence I was able to pick up and learn an instrument.
During my time in Spain, I would take my cousins guitar and play it on the beach, especially during the nights since there was camp fire, logs to sit on and a really nice bunch of people who approach and talk to you in such a friendly manner. I don’t know where the confidence came from but I went over to groups of people and told them I will be performing a few songs on the east of the beach and surprisingly, it was a decent turn out. I felt good about myself, playing and singing and connecting with people.
It was really the first time in a few years I had ever picked up a guitar and done something such as that, so it was as though my passion for playing was back again.
I set up a gig at a place called the Giralda Bar in Seville and I spent my days and hours leading up to the event, handing out flyers and knocking on people’s doors to tell them to come visit and buy tickets. It was a nervous feeling of how many tickets would be sold and how many people would actually attend.
On the day of the event though, 300 tickets were sold which was more than what the venue could hold. I was gobsmacked but greatly relieved. And it was the day of the event and the only food that was available in the house was cereal.
Usually when people are about to perform, they do something that gives them some sort of luck. It’s superstitious, but it’s great on someones confidence and morale. Strangely enough, I think eating cereal before a performance was one of those things.

It was time to get ready and I put on my favourite (and only) Hugo Boss suit with Ray Ban sunglasses on. I performed and entertained and I was living off that feeling and that moment for the last few days of my stay.
That moment was a big turning curve for me. It made me more focused, determined and definitely more confident with interacting with others. It set out a standard and a dream that I wanted to experience and live.

One of my promoters who works extremely hard to get my music out there, grabbed a spot at one of the yearly Copenhagen festivals for the acoustic/indie stage. It was just before the headliner performance. When you’re in that position you have to play as though you’re the second best on that stage.
I spent the days leading up to the event, finalising my original songs and covers to be played on the Tuesday gig. It was a really difficult thing to do as I had to learn, practice and also hear over how each cover sounds. It couldn’t be too identical to the original, otherwise, what’s the point of doing your own take on the song?
As the days were drawing closer, nerves began to really tighten it’s vice grip on me. I was trying to master the Fix You song by Coldplay and it just wasn’t working as greatly as I hoped. I panicked and worried but I finally did a few takes where it actually sounded decent, but I was still worried about how all the practice will pay off.
I woke up early and went for a morning walk. I know it was freezing outside at the time, but when you’re so mesmorised in thought, weather conditions don’t matter so much. All I kept thinking at that point is ‘things have to work out tonight because it has always been a dream of mine to perform to hundreds of thousands of people on a stage’.
As soon as I arrived at 4:00pm, I was interviewed by a Danish TV channel and I had a great 8 minute talk, and I even said a few things in Danish that were to everyone’s amusement.
Time was drawing near and it was time to hit the changing room. I had these dancers who were going to dance on stage while I perform the more upbeat songs of mine. These guys were absolutely awesome! the whole makeup, the routine, the interaction with me and the crowd was something quite special. I did the same thing as I did in Spain and had some cereal before I went on stage and I was just ready to get on and do my thing.

Two of many dancers.

It was that first breath you take as you step through that curtain. It’s as though you’re leaving a personality behind that’s timid, shy and nervous and you get on without a worry about things. I had planned what to say to the crowd before hand, but that went out the window and I went with the flow of things. I was mostly worried about the response my original songs would receive because I am far from anything big, but the crowd was really live and that kept me smiling throughout my performance.
I finished the performance with Fix You and by that time, Denmark was completely dark, and the lighting and even the rain was quite magical. On the last verse, I stopped singing and the crowd was singing the last of the lyrics. That feeling was so empowering and special to me. You can call me a chump, but I literally and ironically had a tear down my face because of how beautiful that moment was to me.
It was a dream come true and really set up a stepping stone for me for bigger things to come my way in the future.
I plan on trying to get into some really nice places in the UK for gigs over here. It would obviously be harder over here because of the great, current and upcoming talent, but I am going in a great direction.

 Meeeee performing : )

I think at some point in my life, I gave up or wondered away from certain dreams. It could be because you come across new experiences or because you have self-doubt. If you have the desire to do anything, you can do just about anything. How bad do you want it? What sacrifices are you willing to take? But if I lived away from my dreams for a few years, every second of it was worth it because it led me to go back to doing what I love to do.

I just had this thought of how each gender uses the internet, I am talking about some single males and single females in particular.
It is a bit of a generalisation, but it seems to fit perfectly with the people on my Twitter friends list and even on my Facebook friends list too.
What I notice about single females is, they post status updates bickering about how they want men to be this, be that, kiss their feet, paint their nails and basically bow down to them. What a load of rubbish, right?
This isn’t going to turn into some sexist blog, because guys, you’re not getting away from the slaughter either. Some single guys post pictures of themselves showing off ‘What they have’ while posting status updates such as “Great workout at the gym today! (I am basically trying to see if anyone actually notices that I go to the GYM. Yes, I went to the GYM today and the WORKOUT was GREAT with my GYM BUDDY. Anyone notice I am throwing TESTOSTERONE around in the hope of it sounding attractive to others?)”.
They use the internet as a way to stalk and lure females in to boost confidence they don’t have or show in person.

The truth is ladies, you can’t go on and on…and on…and on…and on…and on…and yes, on and on about what a ‘gentlemen’ should be. I am quite certain your girlfriends are not as naive as you think they are, to be suddenly enlightened by your status update stating “Stay away from guys who have had 10 different girlfriends in the past year”. You have to warn others about doing said things? Really? No, really? Get out.
I am going to break this down for you in the most mature way I can say it, here goes: Keep your legs closed.
If a guy cheats on you, yes he’s a horrible vile boy, but it is also up to you what type of guy you go for. Before you dive in, getting into a relationship to do whatever follows after that, take the time to get to know someone first. That way you will perfectly know what you’re getting yourself into.
Feminism is great and I am supportive of females standing their ground, getting stronger and demanding the things they are lacking in comparison to men i.e. equal pay, better standing jobs and not being regarded in society as just being the backbone to things.
I understand females have to be treated with respect and I give females the utmost respect. However a female cannot always blame the failings of a man in a relationship or advertise potential failings of a man to others. Your heart may choose who you fall in love with, but your mind gives you a great indication of who you should and should not get involved with. If you want to be respected so much by a male, then choose a male who will respect you and your body.
The one’s who usually brag on Facebook/Twitter about how some guy has chatted her up and she turned him down because she has ‘standards’ are usually the ones who suffer from despair and choose guys that treat them ridiculously terrible.
When you brag about guys who chat you up, you’re advertising for males to follow the same footsteps.

Here's really what goes on in the gym

I am not saying that eating your way to obesity is the right way to go, but going to the gym doesn’t guarantee or even sometimes further your chances of meeting a woman that greets you with love and a long-standing future together.
Go to the gym only for your own selfish desires which is to be healthy and to gain more confidence in yourself.
Disregard yourselves from going to the gym to please others because you simply won’t as there’s a ton of other men out there who will always be in better shape than you.
If there is someone you really like, start with a face-to-face hello. A hello goes a long way, it could even give you grandchildren someday.
If all you ever desire in your life is just a girlfriend and say if you are granted that request then it can sometimes come with consequences, such as your relationship may not work out and this turns into a habit of getting yourself involved in a string of other bad relationships. My point? It’s not appealing to the opposite sex and would make it even harder for you since that ‘smart, sophisticated, takes you seriously’ type of woman you desire really won’t take you all that serious at all.
There is no point in trying to just get into a relationship just for the sake of wanting one. If you were going out with A for the sake of being in a relationship, B could be standing in front of you and could potentially give you a life of fulfilment but you will be blind of all of this this because you’re in a relationship with A for the sake of wanting to be in a relationship.Love is only daring and risk worthy when you’re in love yourself. Love is also something that is unexpected and it will surprise you. You have no say in what you would prefer to go for and what your type is. Love is about being fast at some moments while also being patient at other times. Love by your peers and loved ones teaches you not to revolve your life around trying to find love but to wait for it to come to you.

I have a hideous birthmark on the left side of my face and I have tried everything in the book to look appealing to the opposite sex. What do I do?

I received this question a few weeks ago and as you all know, I am backlogged with answering your super duper exciting questions.
This question seemed to sadden me a bit, so I thought I would address it on here. The issue with this generation is that life is meant to be lived as glamorous as possible. Whether it’s a guy owning a fancy car or sporting a six pack or if it’s a girl with an absurd amount of cleavage on display. These are just a number of things that catches the eye of a lot of people.
With whatever (if any at all) compliments I receive about my looks from my girlfriend or ex’s or even the odd admirers , I find them to be slightly flattering but at the same time I don’t get the same buzz or the same amount of joy when someone compliments me about the nature of my personality. Even if I was to obsessively go to the gym everyday until I have achieved a chiselled body, you wouldn’t see me directly/slyly posting pictures of myself flaunting what I would have to gain a reaction.
Photography in my eye isn’t about glamour, it’s not about taking pictures to make yourself look pretty and for someone to tell you that you’re pretty. Photography to me is about art, it’s about creativity, it’s about allowing others to have an artistic outlook on the photos you take. It is also about capturing moments and memories.
I think in life, you do have to look after yourself and treat yourself to a point where you feel happy and confident about who you are and what you look like. You shouldn’t be concentrating on trying to better your looks just to appeal to one person that might not even stick with you. If that person cannot take you for who you currently are, even when you feel at your best, then that person really doesn’t deserve someone such as yourself.

You know that one person everyone knows? The one who’s at every party, the one who brags about being chatted up, the one who everyone finds annoying? There’s far too many of them out there.
People constantly complaining about always being chatted up by some guy or girl. Should we really believe that if you’re still single? Are you really that awesome to be bragging about it to others? Of course not, you’re just the same as everyone else.
No matter how much time you spend on your hair, your makeup, the amount you spend on clothes and accessories, it’s not going to change the fact that you look like a human being because the sad truth is, that’s just what you are and will always be.
If you want to look beautiful to others, you have to have a beautiful charming personality to follow. If you’re a guy or a girl with the mindset that the opposite sex is going to be attracted and committed to you purely because of your image of good looks then you can’t be anymore wrong.

The reason why you may attract bad spells of terrible men or women is purely down to yourselves and the desperate image you send out to others. To boast about being chatted up by someone (even if you’re failing to show to others that you ‘dislike’ it) invites other creepy guys or girls to your domain, rather than actually putting a stop to it. Want to know the reason? Quite simply, it’s because you’re giving out further attention and making a bigger deal than what it probably was.
No one likes a bragger. Braggers come across as though they’re more superior to others.
I find it unparalleled when someone calls someone ugly or the ever more immature word, fugly. There’s no measurement of beauty, there’s no degree to become beautiful, so we may as well say that everyone is.
I think it’s vain when one girl or guy is posing in non-modelled underwear pictures of themselves with their hands over their heads in a “You know it looks good and you can’t touch” pose.
However, for some who complain about women posing in underwear, it sometimes tends to be the women who complain (for obvious reasons), while in their Facebook pictures or Twitter avatars their pictures expose an extreme amount of cleavage while utilising the same pose I mentioned just now. The only difference being, she’s wearing more clothes than her counterpart.

I think to the single people who go on and on about their adventures of being chatted up by the opposite sex, the explanation is they want to sound as though they’re wanted by others since they’re not in a relationship of their own.
It’s a way of falsely telling others “I’m not in a relationship because I don’t want to, so I turn down every man/woman who falls down to my knees”.
The reality in life is, no matter where you come from, whatever your goals are, there’s always a part of you that would be dying to fall in love and meet someone. There’s no point in toying with others while in wait for that person.

So be kind, minimise your egos, be gentle to others, understand the other persons pain and once these are achieved peace will be bought about.

Well, well, well, long time no blog. I will be truthful with you, it’s just been quite a somewhat emotional few months and I have had so much mind-block to actually write something on here. The amount of blogs I have wrote and saved as drafts to eventually never be edited or touched against astounds me.
Without further a do, I am back now and I am definitely glad to be back to writing some more blogs. Hopefully this blog will be successful or great enough for me to publish.

I really want to say to people who have emailed my info@undercrimsonmoon.com account, you have been absolutely amazing. You actually kept me alive, since I barely posted any blogs or made updates on my fan page, but to those asking questions on my Formspring account, I will surely be going through and answering your questions tonight.
To those that have followed me all the way from my deviantART page, well, compared to any other online networking site you guys are really the top for me.
Lastly, to those nice people out there that wanted to send me gifts and perishable food, I still have yet to set up a P.O box so I can’t receive them unfortunately : (. However, if you’re so nice enough, how about making a donation? It helps keep the site up and running to it’s absolute best and it’s in support of new features to come!

A week of thought, indeed! I have been thinking a lot about inequalities and tracing back to my A level Sociology days when we discussed a gazillion different ideologies that had different reasons as to why these inequalities exist and how the gap can narrow down so much that these inequalities will cease to exist etc etc.
I had been asked at one point this week “Why do others with riches look down on us?”
Ever since I was asked that question, it has been wondering around in my mind ever since. My theory is that it’s all down to us, that we were the ones that keep the appearance of these inequalities, that includes the males, the females, the whites, the blacks. It’s down to all of us because whether we accurately claim that we’re not racist or we don’t say racist things, that might be true but it’s certain that there is something else that we will discriminate against, whether it’s against the opposite sex (or even our own in some cases) or the disabled.
I think what’s important to establish what seems to be this utopia dream where everyone sees one another as an equal is to first and wait for it…we have to treat everyone as an equal.

I think sometimes we get too carried away and consumed in patriotism, taking far too much pride in being a man or a woman than actually equalling that pride for the others who aren’t apart of that.
I sometimes get asked by others “Am I culturally lost?” or “Do you feel like you’re half of something because of the clashes of culture?” The best way to go about answering that is by saying well, I more or less represent how the world should be or act, I represent that in it’s physical form. In other less poetic terms, I don’t mean in any way that everyone should jump into an interracial relationship and make a mixed race child, you don’t have to go that far to prove a point, but the point to make is that you should embrace one another despite any opposites to the other people who aren’t of the same sex or who are not part of your own culture.
Remember, you can be a woman, you can be white and you can be proud of that, but that doesn’t mean you were the first white woman to ever exist in this world.
The only difference between a man from the west and a man from the east is that your geographic locations are different from one another, as well as your skin colour being a gradient lighter or darker than the other.
The makeup of an individual (I have said this time and time again) is based on the individual and the family that brings him/her up into this world, not so much by culture he/she resides from, since all that’s gained from culture is a sense of history, a liking to cultural traditions in music and food and being accustomed to the rules that have been applied to the country they reside in.
To say “My culture is better because most black men get involved in gang violence” is ignorant, because black men are also the biggest victim of crime in the UK. We could never say one culture is better than another through the judgement made on crime and misconduct statistics, especially if there will always be one individual who is either a rapist, a pedophile or a murderer in each and every single country.

I think what the world lives off is the media, stereotypes, propaganda and most importantly, statistics and to move slightly closer to achieving this utopian dream, we need to live off and rely on something else.
Furthermore, the view “Men are better in business than women because there’s a larger portion of male representation in businesses in the UK”. That couldn’t be said and agreed with if there are women here in the UK who own successful and wealthy businesses. It’s the same thing suggested a few lines up, that we should not rely on stereotypes and statistics which makeup our opinions and our judgement on others.

If I go back to the question about having family from different sides of the world, I wouldn’t say it makes me a better person but I think it makes me slightly more progressive than regressive. It doesn’t make me feel all so comfortable to following and carrying on the traditions of old history which really does promote a slight sense of identity, but also a sense of singularity where for that moment where you’re reviewing these past histories, you’re also singling out the thought of others being a part of that history.
Life to me is about living for now and doing things that improve the nature of the future which includes accepting everyone from all walks of life and yes, I will be cliché, but the things we do also help the nature of the next generation. It’s just all about being considerate.

*Note: Before I receive any bitching in comments, emails or harsh word of mouth about ‘making my blog posts more accustomed to everyone’ or ‘Xbox being a terrible machine’ because you’re all PS3/Nintendo/PC game fanboys, then you may as well stop reading from hereafter because you have to realise each of these blog posts are meant to target only a selection of people who are interested, that’s the whole point of having a very general blog like this one.

There were a few ways that we were able to play the Gears of War 3 Beta. You would either have had to purchase Bulletstorm Epic Edition, be part of (or related to a member) Epic Games or you would have had to pre-order from a selection of stores the Gears of War 3 limited editions or invited by a friend who had the Beta.

From the first moments of jumping into the only available game mode Team Deathmatch at Week 1 of the Beta, my first impressions wasn’t running on a high. The graphics had only proved to have increased probably with the smallest of fractions, with a tiny spec of detail being added to the upcoming game.
What had seemed to draw me into making this game feel slightly a whole lot of a different experience from the games before it was the updated combat abilities. While curiously wondering around the map in hope of finding and testing out the latest weapon additions, I was granted and welcomed to being stabbed by a retro-lancer.
As furious as it may be to anyone to have witnessed and been a victim of, it was actually a very satisfying experience because it did produce a massive smile on my face that I will also be able to do that to my foes.

Along with the additions of a retro-lancer, you will also find other new weapon/accessory editions such as:

* Incendiary grenades which ignites your foes in a puddle of flames (definitely makes good meat for a BBQ)
* A new double-barrol shotgun that once mastered could prove to be a huge deciding factor in a game
* The digger launcher which fires a small creature under ground which has an explosive stuck to it. This is definitely great for grabbing multi-kills if used well
* One-shot, a sniper rifle that surely packs a punch. It will kill anything insight, no matter what body part you have taken a shot to

New Weapon: Retro-Lancer

The beta introduces 4 new maps; Old Town, Thrashball, Trenches and Checkout.
Old town and Trenches provides the player with a sense of nostalgia from the Gears 2 maps Pavillion and Nowhere.
Along with these particular maps comes a different set of spawn weapons, that. if you manage to grab before any other, it will help you to go closer into unlocking your executions for each weapon with each kill, which in the previous Gears of War games, only a few weapons had special executions attached to them that didn’t need to be unlocked. The latest editions include the mulcher, the mortar and executions for the inclusion of the newest of toys to please you in your epic quest to overcome the stench of enemies across the map.

Map: Old Town

Put aside new weapons and executions , the only other new additions brought towards the franchise is the ability to ‘wall-jump’ on an opponent that is camping out on the opposite side of the wall. The other addition is being able to tag a hostage with a grenade you have equipped in your inventory and throwing him out into the open directed space. This is brilliant for campers also, it especially works well with the last few opponents that are remaining and camping out in small places.
Other than that, not a great lot has changed. The graphics are more or less the same, the sounds seem to have not have been tinkered with (a lot of common phrases used by the characters from old Gears games are still being used).
This will most definitely be a huge #1 seller, maybe even game of year, but the lack of changes and the 3 (or so) years wait does make it quite disappointing to all the fans.
However, Gears of War 2 was near enough a perfect game back in it’s hay day and still proves to be widely popular.
I am guessing Epic Games didn’t want to mess around with the game too much to a point that took away the glory from the success of it’s predecessors.

All in all, this game will truly be a force to be reckoned with when it’s released on September 20, 2011.
Be sure to pre-order the Limited Edition or Epic Edition copies of the game as soon as possible, due to reports of high demand.

No.