9:53 pm: Linkin Park stuns the crowd and wins "Best Rock Video." Stuns them because everyone appears to have assumed they had already disbanded. (My only guess here is that the same demographic that eats at Arby's also likes Linkin Park.) Our attention spans are so short that MTV has planned to do the intro number as the closing one and is counting on no one noticing.

10:00 pm: Duran Duran, Kelly Osbourne, and Avril Lavinge. Or, as I like to call them, "The Supergroup That Nobody Asked For, Nobody Wants, and Really, It Would Make Most People More Comfortable If You Just Left Quickly."

WE'RE ALMOST HOME

10:35 pm: Beyonce accidentally has wandered into a bad college modern dance piece and is now surrounded by a bunch of dudes who are covered head to toe in black. More than a bit odd. Next up: girls dancing around in pillowcases, just watch.

10:37 pm: So, lemmee get this straight: They bleep out the word "blunt" but do a loving, up-close-and-personal, 25-girl, ass-shaking pan with the camera, so close I know what kind of wax they got this morning? American morals, people. They're faaaaaaaaaantastic.

10:39 pm: Has Beyonce sung more than eight notes live over these three songs? I feel like I'm watching a hip-hop version of "Enter the Dragon." It's disconcerting. I hear her voice, but her lips aren't moving.

10:45 pm: Anyone else think that Britney Spears and Madonna have just been making out backstage for the last 3 hours, hoping someone would notice? Just me then? OK.

11:01 pm: Metallica just played 30-second instrumental versions of Lenny Kravitz's "Are You Gonna Go My Way?," Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit," The White Stripes' "Seven Nation Army," and Michael Jackson's "Beat It." I don't even need to put a joke here, do I? Like shooting fish in a barrel.

Well, it was a long show, and that's not the half of it. He watched it all, so we didn't have to. Let's give it up for a man with an iron constitution and a mind of steel.