What you been up to?

I hate this question.

In every day conversation between friends, it's fine. But when people ask you that question, having not seen you in a while. People from school, etc. They're not asking, simply "What have you been up to today?" or even this week, they're asking "How successful have you been in life?"

This annoys me, because in the short time you have to answer the question, you can come across as a complete failure at life. "I'm still at home, I didn't go to university -- remember, I dropped out of school. I don't have a job."

Then there's the awkward silence, while they try and figure out how to skirt around that new-found knowledge. 

Fact is, yeah. I dropped out of school, that was for a mixture of reasons, intelligence certainly wasn't one of them. If I wanted to, I could have gone to college and worked to get qualifications there and then gone onto university. That was never an appealing idea to me though. When I was little, I never had a burning desire to be... anything. Kids usually want to be a vet, a doctor, something like that that. I didn't.

Why would I want to spend 4 years + studying something, when I don't know if it's something I really want to do? - Some people might claim "the experience" but I don't drink and have no desire to and when people talk about 'the experience' most of that experience involves being drunk.

I'm still at home, better yet, I'm still in the same home I have been for 22 years. I was born in the hospital and came home to this address. Currently, I live with my Mum and my Granny, before that my Granda too, but he died last year. Why haven't I moved out? Why haven't I got a job?

My Mum works, and to allow her to continue working, I stay at home and care for my Granny, who has dementia (and until he died, my Granda, who had Huntington's). Is it an easy thing to do? To me, it kind of is. I've grew up with my Granda getting progressively worse with Huntington's and over the past few years, I've seen my Granny go the same way - with my Granny is was harder, because it was a quicker decline, but still. You learn to live with it. People who don't see her every day, I'm sure, wouldn't be able to handle it in the same with I do and to a greater extent my Mum does.

Because of the way I've structured my life though, either by choice or not. I'm able to do things that most people with 9-5 jobs can't. I travelled to America by myself at the age of 19, when most people are starting their second year of University. A year later, I travelled across Europe, stopping off in Brussels, Paris, Rome and Venice with my friends and the year after that, I returned to Paris with Ryan, meeting up with people over there.

This year, if all goes to plan I could be going to the US not once, but twice.

I'll be 23 by then - Yeah, I don't have a job with promotion opportunities, I don't have my own accommodation, I'm not settling down, but why should I?

The problem with the question "What you been up to?" is that you don't have time to say all that. Which is why, I'm forced to open with "I'm a carer." - which, while true to an extent, the reason I say it is because it's really just a lot better than saying "nothing".

"Nothing" makes you sound like a failure and no-one wants that awkward silence.

Words I spoke.

Claire asked me earlier if I was going to quiz tonight. I said no, cause I figured Matt would be there and I wanted him to just have an easy weekend without having to worry about my whereabouts. The reason for this?

Well, I said some things about him about 3 years ago which he took great offence to (quite rightly, as that was the goal, in a way) and hasn't spoken to me since - hasn't come back to Elgin since.

"Hate Blogs" as they were called, had a certain genius to them. The people I wrote them about were almost always subscribers to my blog - I knew they were going to be reading them. While I admit that they might not have been the most mature thing ever, I don't regret writing them. Branding them as such and making light of it all was maybe not the best thing ever, but the words in the blogs themselves were always truthful and because of that I'll never apologise for writing them.

Certain people read them, accepted them and moved on with their lives. Which I respected them for, people like Grant, for example. We're far from friends (we weren't that close before either) but we spoke afterwards and put it behind us. Laura, who I didn't even hide behind a blog for... We openly admitted our dislike for each other and she actually took me aside at a party and said that "yeah, I know we don't like each other, but lets try and get on?" That took guts and now, we laugh about things I've said in the past - Ailsa's another one who I openly admitted to not liking and while we're far from friends now, we do speak and do get on.

This will never happen with Matt and I'm not saying it ever has to, or should. The awkwardness is almost always guarenteed to be there, for as long as we both roam this earth. Why yes, I am painting this to be some epic battle between two giants. What of it? It'd be a lot cooler if it was.

These days though? If I don't like someone, I don't tell them. Whether that's a step back, I don't know. What I do do though, is cut them out of my life altogether. Why pretend that you like someone, why pretend to be nice to their face while secretly hating them? What's the point?

I shouldn't even know about it, let alone care.

Yesterday I found myself watching live footage from the "We're with Coco" rally outside Universal Studios, Hollywood, on TMZ.com.

Why? I'm not really even sure. But I watched for a good hour or so and even felt a strange sense of pride in it all. I probably first heard of Conan O'Brien around the time it was announced he would get the Tonight Show, back in 2004. At that time I watched David Letterman on ITV2. I'm not sure how, but I had seen Leno and just never found him to be funny. I remember people praising him for writing his own monologue and how no other late night host did that - which may have been true at the time, but the fact is, it wasn't a funny monologue. The jokes fell flat. At least Letterman's, although written by a team of writers, got a few laughs from the audience and when they didn't, it didn't feel as awkward as did on Leno.

When I was in America in 2006, I favoured Craig Ferguson's brand of Late Night over any others, he actually made me laugh. Conan was occasionally put on, but I wasn't that interested. It wasn't until around 2008 or so, that I started watching Conan semi-regularly. There'd occasionally be a guest on that I'd want to see, so I'd download the show and give it a watch. It was then, that I started to appreciate Conan's humour and the show as a whole. I still didn't watch it all the time and I can't claim to have watched the Tonight Show all the time either, but I liked Conan and understood why others liked him too. When he moved to the Tonight Show last year, I downloaded the first episode and for the first time ever, actually found myself laughing at, or with, the host of the Tonight Show. Who knew that was possible?

Over the years, the stories I've heard about Conan have been nothing but positive. During the writers strike, when the show was unable to work, he paid his staff out of his own pocket. When moving from his old show to the Tonight Show, he took his entire staff with him, from the east coast, to the west coast. Something which I'm sure he didn't have to do and just yesterday, when a couple hundred people showed up outside Universal Studios to show their support for him, he and his staff sent out free pizza, amongst other things.

I think it's safe to say from the above that I am, indeed, "Team Conan" - but again, why? The Tonight Show is a brand that has been on the air for nearly 66 years - but it's an American brand - one that barely airs here, if indeed it still does (I know Leno's tonight show used to air on CNBC at some point, but it was never something I watched there).

The internet has allowed me to follow and become immersed in another countries pop culture, to the extent where I can be more clued into the goings on than people actually living in that country and I'm not the only one.

Tying into the piracy argument I've put forward before, the internet has given shows an audience far exceeding that which will show up on any ratings breakdown, which isn't necessarily a positive thing when it comes to the shows themselves. If you don't get ratings, you don't stay on the air, but if networks like NBC were to open up live streaming and catch-up services with localised advertising, I'm sure they'd soon realise the audience and potential customers they really have.

Conan came out and said, in a public statement that he refused to do the Tonight Show at 12:05 (an offer made to him when it was announced that they were moving Leno back to 11:35) - stating that the Tonight Show has always been on at 11:35 and it wouldn't be the Tonight Show if it weren't. I respect him for that, even if it is in a world where timeslots don't matter and TV is watched online. Conan believed in what he was doing and was doing well at it. He believed in the Tonight Show as a brand, a brand he was only given 6 months to call his own, before NBC decided to, essentially, fire him and put Leno back in his place. 

"We're the generation that's gotta be heard." 

Although unlikely to change their minds at this late date, NBC have certainly been told, by many, that the decision they're making is the wrong one and that's the thing I'm proud of. The fact that a kid from Scotland can be involved in something half way across the world. It's definitely not the most important thing to ever rock the world. But it's something many people are passionate about and it shows that when passionate, people can come together. If I lived in L.A. I would have been standing in the rain with those people outside Universal Studios yesterday, cause I'm with CoCo.


-- I understand that TV is a business and like all business, it can be cruel. But seeing how things go down, I honestly think I could do a better job. I'm not saying I would be loved by everyone, but I think I would make better choices and show better profits than a network like NBC has managed in a number of years. Networks as a whole seem to be catering to the wrong crowd and while, to an extent it may be working just now, it won't work in the long run and it's the long run that matters.

I shouldn't even know about it, let alone care.

Yesterday I found myself watching live footage from the "We're with Coco" rally outside Universal Studios, Hollywood, on TMZ.com.

Why? I'm not really even sure. But I watched for a good hour or so and even felt a strange sense of pride in it all. I probably first heard of Conan O'Brien around the time it was announced he would get the Tonight Show, back in 2004. At that time I watched David Letterman on ITV2. I'm not sure how, but I had seen Leno and just never found him to be funny. I remember people praising him for writing his own monologue and how no other late night host did that - which may have been true at the time, but the fact is, it wasn't a funny monologue. The jokes fell flat. At least Letterman's, although written by a team of writers, got a few laughs from the audience and when they didn't, it didn't feel as awkward as did on Leno.

When I was in America in 2006, I favoured Craig Ferguson's brand of Late Night over any others, he actually made me laugh. Conan was occasionally put on, but I wasn't that interested. It wasn't until around 2008 or so, that I started watching Conan semi-regularly. There'd occasionally be a guest on that I'd want to see, so I'd download the show and give it a watch. It was then, that I started to appreciate Conan's humour and the show as a whole. I still didn't watch it all the time and I can't claim to have watched the Tonight Show all the time either, but I liked Conan and understood why others liked him too. When he moved to the Tonight Show last year, I downloaded the first episode and for the first time ever, actually found myself laughing at, or with, the host of the Tonight Show. Who knew that was possible?

Over the years, the stories I've heard about Conan have been nothing but positive. During the writers strike, when the show was unable to work, he paid his staff out of his own pocket. When moving from his old show to the Tonight Show, he took his entire staff with him, from the east coast, to the west coast. Something which I'm sure he didn't have to do and just yesterday, when a couple hundred people showed up outside Universal Studios to show their support for him, he and his staff sent out free pizza, amongst other things.

I think it's safe to say from the above that I am, indeed, "Team Conan" - but again, why? The Tonight Show is a brand that has been on the air for nearly 66 years - but it's an American brand - one that barely airs here, if indeed it still does (I know Leno's tonight show used to air on CNBC at some point, but it was never something I watched there).