From the I-Apparently-Have-No-Original-Ideas file, below is a link to Salon's diary-style coverage of the VMAs. His is slightly more coherent than mine and has fewer typos, although in my defense I must point out that it aired an hour earlier on the east coast, so he didn't have to say up as late.

What's most interesting is that we had some very similar observations, almost word for word in one case. I don't know if that's good or bad. Probably bad.

MTV's spontaneous night of crazy fun

  So I'm still feeling kind of crappy, even after taking a sick day. I need to spend the evening on the couch, but I don’t have any good DVDs and there's nothing on my Tivo. What better way to pass the time than by watching the MTV Video Music Awards? That'll cure my pounding headache!

Oof. Maybe a blow-by-blow blog will make it go down easier.

8:00 PM - The big surprise opening that we were promised turns out to be Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, and Madonna singing "Like a Virgin". Truly a performance for the ages.

8:07 PM - Madonna and Britney are open-mouth kissing. Even Snoop Dogg can't believe it. Is he genuinely shocked by the kiss, or is he just surprised that they would rip off the same stunt Ally McBeal pulled a few years ago? Note to MTV execs: it didn't help their ratings, either.

8:10 - Chris Rock is making fun of people: MTV, Puffy, Christopher Reeve, R. Kelly, the Olsen twins...a Jenna Jameson remark even draws embarrassed looks from David Spade. David Spade. This show is all about embarrassing the previously-unembarrassable.

8:13 – Chris Rock: "I don't even think Aston Kutcher is in with love Demi Moore. I just think he's trying to Punk Bruce Willis."

8:18 - LeBron James is hitting on Ashanti, and no one seems to care. Soooo embarrassing.

8:23 - MTV is eating itself. They're showing video highlights of the part of the show we just saw - a slow-mo of the Madonna-Britney kiss, followed by a pensive close up of Justin Timberlake pondering the implications.

8:29 - Bam Margera and Tony Hawk give a lame intro for the band Good Charlotte and then ollie off the stage. Tony lands it; Bam, not so much.

8:32 – Chris Rock: "Good Charlotte? More like a mediocre Green Day..." You took the words right out of my mouth.

8:34 - Beyonce and her breasts accept the award for Best R&B Video.

8:36 - GOD, commercials suck. Thank you, Tivo.

8:43 - Somehow, Eminem wins the 2003 award for Best Video From a Film for "Lose Yourself" from 2002’s Eight Mile. Not sure about the math on that one. His acceptance speech is short and appreciative. Also, 50 Cent's nickname, apparently, is "Fifty".

8:56 - Say what you will, but 50 Cent is the best-dressed P.I.M.P. I've ever seen. Classy grey pinstriped suit, white vest, and white tie. Lookin' good, Fifty.

9:06 - David Spade and the Olsen Twins are presenting an award for something or other. I read the other day that the twins are worth $150 million. EACH. They're 17 years old.

9:13 - 50 Cent wins the award for Best Rap Video. He changed clothes, though. The suit is gone, and now he's wearing a lame balck t-shirt and jeans. Hey, wait - Eminem changed too. He changed from a white track suit to a light blue one.

9:20 - Jessica Simpson is scary. You know that plastic-looking Barbie-doll looking news anchor on Fox? Jessica Simpson looks even worse than she does.

9:23 - The Donnas don't win for Best Group Video. Blast.

9:24 - Eminem has changed clothes again. He now appears to be wearing a velour basketball jersey. 50 Cent changed too - a white outfit involving a wife beater, just like in the video. Definitely not as cool as the suit.

Fifty is singing "P.I.M.P". They failed to bleep two instances of the word "motherfucker", but they make sure to cut out Snoop saying "pimp hand". Wha?

"G-U-N-I-tizzy, rollin' with me and the D-P-gizzy!" I think they cleaned those lyrics up a little...

9:31 - 50 Cent is done. Chris Rock: "Today is the anniversary of Martin Luther King's 'I Have a Dream' speech. Isn't it nice to see that his dream finally came true?"

9:38 - The Fab Five from Queer Eye are presenting. I hate to say it, but with the exception of the food guy, they all look...well, average. Very disappointing, Carson.

9:40 - Beyonce and the twins get another award. See, Enimem: she's wearing something embarrassing, and she still isn't changing clothes.

9:47 - Fred Durst flips off the camera! My god, the rebellion! MTV is truly the voice of my generation!

9:56 - Mary J. Blige is working it. She's a really good performer. I genuinely wish I liked her music better.

10:01 - Duran Duran, Kelly Osbourne, Avril Lavigne - for the first time on the same stage! Why do we need six people to present one award? It almost doesn't happen - Duran Duran miss their cue. Technical difficulties also prevent us from watching the Duran Duran retrospective.

10:03 - Oh! It's a ruse! They're actually presenting a lifetime achievement award to Duran Duran! How convenient that it's timed so nicely with their comeback tour.

10:06 - Justin Timberlake and his goatee accept the award for Best Dance Video. I like his suit. He's no 50 Cent, but still. Also, The Neptunes are up there for some reason.

10:08 - The sexy Kelly LeBrock-esque announcer voice mentions that "Snoop D-O-double G" will be appearing in the next segment. How does one get people to call them something like that? Did he have his publicist send out a Prince-style press release indicating that from now on he should be referred to as Snoop D-O-double-G? I'd love for people to call me s-C-O-double T, but I'm not sure anybody would do it, even with a press release. Maybe it has something to do with my pimp hand not being strong enough.

10:15 - Coldplay is threatening to put me to sleep...

10:20 - Justin wins the award for Best Male Video. He is genuinely embarrassed to have won - he dedicates the award to Johnny Cash, who was also nominated. My God, did I just refer to Justin Timberlake by his first name? This is bad.

10:24 - In spite of my earlier damnation of television advertising, I stop fast forwarding long enough to watch the Pepsi commercial with Shakira. I'm sorry, but she's just impossibly hot. My God, those leather pants. I guess everyone has his or her price, and Shakira is mine.

10:28 - Pamela Anderson and Mya present some award. Pam seems surprised when Mya reads a boob joke off the teleprompter. Side note: I think Mya is pretty. Also, she was great in Chicago.

10;30 - 50 Cent wins something. Still no suit - a green t-shirt. Also, he's pimping Obie Trice's new album.

10:32 - Pharrell is pimping his new album. Sigh. Shortly thereafter, Beyonce is lowered onto a velvet couch by a rope tied around her ankles. As soon as she lands she's immediately felt up by a bunch of scary guys in masks wearing codpieces so large that they seem to defy the physics of the all-black body suits that attempt to contain them. Ass-shaking ensues. Jay-Z later joins her wearing Top Gun-style aviator sunglasses.

10:37 - Kelly LeBrock Voice: "When we come back, we're going to get all up in the hizzy for shizzle..." She then proceeds to pronounce "Taco Bell" as "Tack-oh Bell".

10:45 - I’m fading fast. I’m not sure I’m going to last until 11. If I start to snore, just nudge me.

10:46 - Mediocre Green Day win something.

10:49 - They show a clip of Metallica with Rob Trujillo, their new bassist. I hate to sound like an old fogey, but it’s just not the same without Jason Newstead. 90’s Metallica, I pine for thee.

10:52 – Snoop D-O-Double-Gizzle and Adam Sandler appear onstage to present the Video of the Year Award, accompanied by frightening and somewhat dazed-looking real-life ex-pimp, Don “Magic” Juan. Snoop refers to Sandler as “San-dizzle”, which launches them into a 2-minute riff on rap slang. Not surprisingly, Snoop does it better than Sandler.

10:55 – Some dude who is allegedly Snoop’s nephew runs onstage and steals the mic from Snoop, who looks perturbed. The dude is ushered offstage by an amused security guard. Sandler also seems to be enjoying it.

10:56 - Missy Elliot wins the Video of the Year Award for "Work It". She’s wearing a kelly-and-lime green plaid Adidas track suit with one of those green plaid golf hats. I don’t know of many people who could pull that off, but she does.

10:57 – Newly re-bassed Metallica take the stage, playing a medley of tunes from the last 20 years, including, uh, lessee…something by Lenny Kravitz, I think, Smells Like Teen Spirit, Beat It, and Enter Sandman, of all things. (Oh, I guess it's the 20th anniversary of the VMAs. I didn't get that before.) Then they play a song from their new album. I’ll say this for Rob Trujillo – he has great heavy metal hair.

11:03 - Oog. The MTV Post-Part special is starting. I think this is my cue to check out. Thanks for reading this far. Must sleep...

  UGH. I don't know what's wrong with me. I have 80 million things to do: photo projects to work on, NaNoWriMo novels to plan, old novel fragments to post, web sites to finish, mix CDs to obsessively fiddle with, etc. It's all fun stuff that I am eagerly anticipating. So why is that all I want to do is lay around? I had grand plans for the weekend, but I got virtually nothing accomplished. I watched a Formula 1 race on TV, played some crappy video games, watched some other stuff on TV, played some crappy video games at Matt's house, flipped through some magazines, and bought a jacket. That's pretty much it. I didn't even watch a movie, for God's sake. I did force myself to go out and take some pictures, but I felt sort of half-hearted about it. I feel like a big lump of bleah. (If anyone is qualified to make "bleah" into a noun, it's me.) Maybe I just need some downtime before my Month of Travel begins in September.

On the other hand, here is a picture of me in an interesting hat:

(Let me hasten to add that the hat is not mine. It belongs to Matt's girlfriend, who wore it Saturday night when she was a dancer in the Miss Chinese Seattle pageant. No, she is not Chinese.)

The only other highlight of my weekend was finding out that my musical tastes have become so obscure that I'm now somehow cool. This happened today. I went to Bellevue Square to try and dislodge my boredom by spending money. (Success! Thank you, Puma store!) As I was walking around the mall, I kept noticing that people were staring at me. Not in a bad way, I guess, but I still couldn't help casually checking my reflection every five minutes to make sure that there wasn't a bird standing on my head or something.

In between bird checks I went into a store to buy something. As I was paying, the clerk said, "Where did you get that cool shirt?" I was about to say, "What shirt?", and then I looked down. I was wearing a t-shirt I bought at a Teenage Fanclub concert ten years ago. You remember Teenage Fanclub, right? The British power-pop quartet that scored in 1991 with their breakout MTV hit "The Concept" off the non-gold selling LP "Bandwagonesque", followed by the excellent and also non-gold selling "Thirteen" and "Grand Prix", as well as the pretty good "Songs From Northern Britain"?

Yeah, she didn't remember them either. "I got it at a concert," I said. Blank stare. "You know, the band? Teenage Fanclub?" Blank stare.

Apparently Teenage Fanclub is so little known that she assumed that my t-shirt bearing their name was some sort of ironic pop culture reference - like maybe it was a cynical statement that I have a teenage fanclub, or that I'm in a teenage fanclub, which since I'm clearly not a teenager must be some kind of wry joke.

Sorry, miss, I'm not that hip, it's just that the bands I like are no longer on anyone's radar screen. (For perspective, Teenage Fanclub no longer even shows up on the web site of their record company, and this is a site that features a group called Omar and the Howlers.) It seems that the only street cred I have these days is accidental.

Is this my fate? Am I doomed to wither and fade, my remaining days turning into nothing more than a long shuffle of wasted weekends and 90's alternative rock?

Not as long as I have access to that hat...