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That's my future wife there in the center, Regine Chassagne. There have been few times in my life where a musician or band on stage have made me feel like they thought this random stop on a long tour was special for some inexplicable reason, but Arcade Fire did just that for me on Saturday.

My friend Sue and I made the trek out to Upper Darby's Tower Theatre to see the best artist/band to come out of Canada since...(thinks to self:...Alanis, no... Celine, hell no... Bryan Adams, uh-uh... Rush, haha, come on really) ... since ever.

If you haven't seen the lineup announced today for the FRIGGIN' SPECTACULAR Virgin Festival 2007 in Baltimore, let me save you the time of having to look it up. (Especially awesome artists appear in bold because I felt like it.)

Aug. 4
* The Police
* Beastie Boys
* Modest Mouse
* Incubus
* TV On The Radio
* LCD Soundsystem
* Fountains Of Wayne
* Peter Bjorn and John
* Sasha and John Digweed
* The Fratellis
* Danny Tenaglia
* Amy Winehouse
* Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals
* Sander Van Doorn
* Shout Out Out Out Out
* Cheap Trick
* Felix Da Housecat
* Paolo Nutini
* Booka Shade
* Miguel Migs
* Fiction Plane

Aug. 5
* The Smashing Pumpkins
* 311
* Interpol
* Yeah Yeah Yeahs
* Velvet Revolver
* Chris Cornell
* The Crystal Method
* Wu Tang Clan
* Matisyahu
* Girl Talk
* Bad Brains
* Deep Dish
* Regina Spektor
* Spoon
* Dieselboy and Andy C
* M.I.A.
* Infected Mushroom
* CSS
* James Zabiela

The folks over at Sovereign Bank Stadium have announced the first non-baseball entertainment at the new York Revolution home. July 2 will see fireworks and a performance by the York Symphony Orchestra, and Aug. 26 will be called Faith and Family Day and feature a concert by Christian rock band NewSong.

This is good news and all, but it's important to note that both of these events are attached to actual ball games. You want to hear YSO? Buy a ticket to that game. Same goes for NewSong. I guess they're testing the waters over there to see if they get a boost in ticket sales on those game days to show that people really do want to see other forms of entertainment there. I know I do.

Word on the street has it that to celebrate Easter, WTPA 93.5-FM will be "resurrecting" famous dead musicians, playing off that whole resurrection theme of Easter. Makes sense, right? I'm sure this won't offend ANY religious folk at all.

"TMNT" was the No. 1 movie in America for a reason this past week - it rocked. OK, so maybe I'm a little biased since I spent many a day in my youth (nearly two decades ago) playing with Ninja Turtle action figures, video games, going to the "Ninja Turtles: Coming Out of Their Shells" live tour, dressing up as a Ninja Turtle for Halloween and easily getting caught during a game of hide-and-go-seek-in-the-dark because I accidentally wore my glow-in-the-dark Leonardo PJs.

In all seriousness, the movie was better than I expected. Sure, there were plenty of groan-worthy jokes and plot holes big enough to drop a man hole cover through, but all-in-all this was actually a more grown-up Ninja Turtles movie in comparison to its early '90s counterparts. Go see it. Now.

As entertainment reporter, I talk to local bands. A lot. A whole lot. It's a blessing and a curse. The truth is, there is something supernatural about York County because I think there are more bands than there are people. You think I'm kidding but they're everywhere. I open my shower curtain at night and there's a new local band holding out my towel for me. It's kind of getting creepy.

When it comes to self-promotion some bands are better than others. Some contact me and when I try and get back to them, I never hear from them again. Some check in with frequent e-mails to make sure I haven't forgotten that I promised them a profile in FlipSide. I haven't.

For your reading pleasure, here are a couple mini reviews on the good and the bad that I've seen or heard lately. Try and enjoy.

The Arcade Fire - "Neon Bible" - Mega wow. It took me a few listens to really get into The Arcade Fire's follow up to "Funeral," but hot diggity damn, it's solid. It's a little more morose than their last outing, which is odd, since they wrote "Funeral" while they all had family members dropping dead like flies, but it is what it is. As much as I hate to admit it, the best track on here is a revamped version of "No Cars Go," from their early self-titled EP. I never cared much for the song... until now. Now it lights up my soul. It's an overdrive-fantasy-turn-it-up-to-11-sends-shivers-down-your-spine-while-driving-80-down-the-highway-in-a-snowstorm kinda song. Or so I think. Another great track? "Black Waves/Bad Vibrations." 9 out of 10.

Here's is my Popeye pop culture column from this week's FlipSide.

There's an evil presence lurking in my apartment as we speak, waiting for me to get home this evening. It's a big, black ominous thing that has teased and tortured me, keeping me awake for hours at night when I should've been sleeping. And the worst part? I'm the one who brought it in and gave it a home more than a month ago.

It all began around Christmas when I was fed up with not having an HDTV. I'm a bit of a technophile, and it pained me that while I had a PlayStation 2, Macbook with DVI (high-def capable) output and the finances for digital cable, I still had a junky old standard definition TV.

It was time for an upgrade, so I did some Internet-hunting and found a great deal on a 37-inch Westinghouse. I pulled out the credit card and voilà! A few days later, the delivery man was knocking at my door, dragging a box big enough to sleep in. After single-handedly pulling the behemoth box up a flight of stairs, I unwrapped the monolith of technology and plugged it in. My life hasn't been the same since.

Is it just me or does Lisa Nowak bear an uncanny resemblance to a certain Emperor of the Republic?

Lisa Nowak

Emperor Palpatine

Robot Loneliness

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I'm darkly humorous kinda guy and somehow often find humor in depressing things and sadness in humorous things. The perfect embodiment of this so far tonight would be GM's suicidal machine commercial.

For those who missed it, an assembly line robot that helps piece together GM cars is laid off and goes on through a depressing run of low-level work before finding himself on the edge of a bridge, debating whether or not to "jump." I didn't actually think GM would go there, but they actually had the machine commit robotic suicide. True, it turned out to be a dream, but still. Do robots dream of electric sheep? No apparently, they dream of killing themselves.