Off the top of my head, I can’t recall an experience that changed my perceptions so quickly.

The light distorts what a self-important asshole Adam Young has become.

For starters, Paper Route is about a million times better live. In trying to explain the difference, the only accurate thing I can come up with is: they sound less bitchy. They sound like they mean it. And they seem weirdly polite. Maybe it’s that they’re from Nashville. Maybe it’s because a Detroit crowd would go nuts over someone taking a festering dump on a guitar on stage. I can’t say for certain.

They opened for everyone, I guess you could say. At least, in my mind. I think they had two or three actual fans, so getting a good view at the SRO Royal Oak Music Theatre was surprisingly easy to accomplish. They were loud, and seemed sincere enough, and try as I might to deny it, they were good. In retrospect, I probably should have picked up their CD and given them another chance.

Lights was basically what I expected. She did the Old Navy repertoire, and what are unarguably the best tracks off of The Listening, but that was more or less it. I was disappointed that she seemed rushed and that there were none of the fabled covers (particularly Coldplay’s Lost), but at the same time, her performance and presence was so adorable, I wanted to put her in my pocket.

Finally, it was time for Owl City.

Now, being a moderate Death Cab for Cutie and a stupidly huge fan of The Postal Service, I’ve never been terribly overjoyed by the way Owl City progressively co-opts The Postal Service. But short of Fireflies, other Owl City songs aren’t complete ripoffs, so I went in to it prepared to give them the benefit of doubt.

Right out of the gate, they have this overblown “light up everyone in the band” opening that took far too long. Look! A guy on drums. Oooh! A violinist and a cellist! Holy shit! Keyboards! And then… Adam comes jumping around in an owl hoodie, looking more tweaked than your typical City Club regular.

The gaggle of 15 year-old girls absolutely lost their shit, while me and their parents tried to figure out what the big fuss was about. Frankly, I would have been fine with him sitting in front of a MacBook and fucking around. But no, dude’s making the absolute most of his fifteen minutes. The ridiculous amount of aping he was doing in conjunction with “HOW’S EVERYBODY FEELING?” after every second song was almost embarrassing, at least to me, having paid for the ticket.

Seriously. I’ve seen some real nobodies before, and none have approached the crowd-whoring on display here. Not even Steve “Give it up for me!” Ballmer could touch this guy.

As we had moved around the theatre throughout the night, we ended up really close to the soundboard, and that’s where my hope was successfully killed off.

I know how a soundboard works, and not just because I mastered the hell out of South Lyon High’s 1993 production of Mame (yes, I am going to take full credit on this one, unless you can prove otherwise). The amount of engineering, and pre-prod, and all around fuckery that was going on was almost too much for me to take in.

It’s one thing to rip off another artist and be somewhat original about it. It’s something else to be devoid of talent.

For example: I love the hell out of Oasis, and I’d never dream of arguing that they spent the greater portion of the 90′s dipping in to The Beatles’ well. But in the same regard, you’re legally retarded to suggest that the brothers Gallagher can’t write and perform the shit out of a song.

Owl City, on the other hand… I’m not 100% convinced that the audio engineer doesn’t help Adam shoot up backstage, because he sure as hell does everything but jump around in an owl hoodie when the music’s playing.

Perhaps the most amusing incident of the night was when they got to Fireflies — clearly the only song the Peanut Gallery had actually heard of , as evidenced by them going nutty, and singing along for the first time after twelve other songs.

We left early, and met a woman in the elevator who had taken her kids to the show. “It’s much different than where I was last night.”

“Where were you last night?”

“We went and saw this guy… Johnny Rotten… he used to be in a band called The Sex Pistols.”

It made me feel nice that she thought we were too young to know who Johnny Rotten was, or who the Sex Pistols were. Success.

P.S. If you haven’t seen me whoring this video out before, enjoy:

Best. Shoes. Ever.

If you’re not familiar with it, there’s a sensor that goes in your shoe, and a receiver that snaps on to your iPod. The iPod shows how far you’ve gone, how fast you’re going, how many calories you’re burning, and so on. While you’re walking or running, you get an occasional voiceover telling you similar information.

After about a half hour today, I decided my legs kind of hurt, and I was about done. Not a minute later, I get the voiceover… “One kilometer to go.” For you heathens who didn’t have to learn Metric and Imperial units in school, a kilometer is about… well… it isn’t very far. So I pushed further, because I didn’t want Ms. Nike to be ashamed of me. “One half kilometer to go.” Well, this is taking too long, so I’ll turn the speed up. A-ha! Motivation!

I got home, and let it sync with the Nike site. Yay, me. Faster than last time.

Fuck you, sporty whore who can run.

I’m actually working up to running. Right now, it’s more of a brisk walk that takes forever. But Nike has has convinced me that I need a wonderful array of things, conveniently located on their site that tracks all of my uploaded data. Like a wristband. And an armband. And a watch. And better shoes. And a new outfit. All of these things will make me a better runner, even though I’m not really a runner right now. I will be one, and I’ll finally understand the allure.

More importantly, I’ll look closer to the people my age at the gym. Right now, I tend to hang with the 60+ crowd, because most of them are walking pretty slow. So, I imagine I pass myself off in the “medical needs” section, rather than “Holy fuck, he’s huge” when I’m next to some 19 year-old pixie who has been running like a fucking gazelle 30 minutes prior to my arrival, and stays an hour later than I do. Not that I’m bitter about it. Realistically, I can’t be. She didn’t shove those pizzas down my throat.

Speaking of Born to Run, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band are playing this Friday. Had I known earlier, I might have wanted to go if there was an AmEx pre-sale. But I just checked and the whole floor is $92 General Admission, and anywhere else decent is like $103. Maybe if this was a farewell tour, but shit, that’s like a new pair of shoes and a Nike+ watch for two tickets. Sorry Bruce. I don’t think so.

Off the top of my head, I really only remember two blow-out Halloween parties, so that’s never been a huge component of Halloween for me. However, I seem to haul out the same series of movies during the month of October.

This year, I decided it was probably time to pick up the Blu-Ray version of The Crow, but alas, the powers that be have not seen fit to make a Blu-Ray version. I’d say “my loss”, but I really think the loss extends to everyone.

Maybe I was just the right kind of kid at the right time for it, but for my money, The Crow is right up there with The Rocky Horror Picture Show for must-see October viewing.

Just thinking about it got me firing up the soundtrack, and getting carried back to the summer of ’94. And for the nonbelievers, the soundtrack alone is one of the most wonderful and special things to come out of the mid-90′s. I shit you not.

Honestly, it makes me feel bad for the kiddies today. What do you have? Some fruity vampire movie, about ten knockoffs, and the soundtracks are warmed over mall goth music “reimagined” from Marilyn Manson B-sides. You guys have it rough.

I guess the track Minimum Wage is a little telling in itself. I associate it with $4.25/hour, and now it’s… uh… $7 something? I don’t know, but it seems perfectly reasonable to me now, because I don’t make minimum wage and therefore can not relate. And here’s that circle again, showing that I’m just old and out of touch, and I can’t possibly understand what kids today are going through. (Although I’m told it has something to do with those fuckwits Heidi and Spencer who are on some MTV show that’s staged, but not staged, but totally staged.)

Christopher Walken and Grace Jones. Seriously. I dare you to deny the awesomeness of this movie now.

So right now, I’m watching A View to a Kill, which is the only James Bond movie I’ve ever liked. And again, this has everything to do with me becoming a senior citizen sometime over the past year.

For my money, Roger Moore is the only legitimate James Bond, because I’m too young to feel strongly about Sean Connery having played the role before. And while I realize that makes me “too young” for something, he’s like 90 years old now, so there’s not a whole lot of comfort in that.

I think it may be a combination of the soundtrack by Duran Duran, or the fact that this is an extravaganza of innuendo and foreign lady nipple to a 10 year-old. Regardless, it makes me kind of sad that there hasn’t been anything similar to hit my radar. And one thing’s for damn sure… they don’t make movies like this anymore.

Just a side note here… I actually own the soundtrack, which tries to convince you that it’s basically a Duran Duran album. In reality, there’s the theme song “A View to a Kill”, which is by Duran Duran. Followed by things like “Romance Theme from A View to a Kill”, “A View to a Kill – Reprise”, “The Blimp Incident (A View to a Kill)”, which are not. When you’re 9 or 10 and have been saving up allowance to buy this album, this fucking sucks.

God damn kids today can just download it for free…

“While not myself old, I am a long-time listener of The Cranberries.”

Fuck you. You little 19 year-old sprite.

2) Gas is cheap. $2.19 cheap. Let me get out my crystal ball…

After next week, gas is going to go up. If McCain wins, it’ll (allegedly) be because the Middle East is magically frightened of him. If Obama wins, it’ll (allegedly) be because the oil companies are magically frightened of higher taxes. Mark my words, folks.

And in listening to it, I thought “I like this a lot, which is probably why I got the ‘Show’ track a few months back. Since I like this and it isn’t on the radio constantly, I’m sure some fuckstick at ABC will ass-ram it in to a Grey’s Anatomy soundtrack just to wound my god damn soul and turn everything I liked and found first in to overplayed garbage that I am way too fucking cool to listen to anymore.”

So, I checked. But for the first time, they beat me. So, well done, you. Soulless douchenozzle at ABC.

On a tangent here, why do people watch that show? I’ve been fortunate enough to have only seen it a few times, and I swear, the plot is the same every fucking time. It can’t be coincidence:

• The chick who plays Grey (I dunno, I guess that’s her name. The one who is like 40 years old, but is still an intern, sleeps with the guy who played the dork in Can’t Buy Me Love, and talks like she ate gravel for breakfast) makes some witless observation that just so happens to have everything to do with the upcoming plot.

• The blonde girl Katherine something or other has some strange emotional thing that causes her to either contemplate quitting, or nearly kill someone.

• The dork from Can’t Buy Me Love sort-of makes some commitment to Grey, then something happens and she bitches about it for the rest of the episode.

• OH FUCK! HUGE TRAGEDY! HOW WILL THE DOCTORS POSSIBLY OVERCOME THIS CATASTROPHE?

• Sandra Oh says something bitchy.

• The gay-in-real-life guy fails at relationships.

• THANK GOD THE SASSY BLACK LADY SAVED THE DAY WITH HER NO-NONSENSE MENTORING!

• Grey babbles on about how she learned something, which she will inevitably forget by next week.

I just don’t understand why they have to use decent music for their awful show.

And it REALLY didn’t need to be remade as a country song.