I wasn't sure about all of this until I went — totally without my parents, I might add — to Hil's Blaisdell Arena concert last night. But after sitting through 70 minutes of her sing, I discovered a sad truth about myself: Hilary Duff is, like, so yesterday to me.

Oh, sure, I should've seen it coming when none of my friends wanted to see Hil with me. A couple of years ago, we were all about "Lizzie McGuire" reruns on The Disney Channel. Last year, we even sang along to Hil's first-ever CD, "Metamorphosis," in my mom's SUV.

We liked that she sang about teenager stuff like the ups and downs of friendship, getting to drive, not being a kid anymore, and sticking up for yourself and being strong. Hil didn't sing as good as Christina Aguilera — or even Mandy Moore, for that matter. But she sang about stuff that we could relate to ... stuff we went through every day at school.

Even Mom liked Hil, because — unlike Britney or Christina — she was a sweet girl who listened to her own mom, didn't get into Hollywood-kid-star-style trouble, and dressed mostly tastefully. She didn't change her name to Xtina or marry one of her backup dancers without a pre-nup. And Dad? He liked Hil 'cuz Mom did.

Sure, I wasn't all that stoked that the parents liked Hil. (I mean, come on, these are people who listen to some guy named Jimmy Buffett sing pirate songs!) But we can't choose the family we're born into, can we?

Even with a new more harder- rocking second CD just out, Hil's still all about — as Mom likes to say — "sweetness and light." And I've got no problem with that. But last night, all alone, without my friends, and with thousands of pre-teen and pre-pre-teen girls (and boys) around me screaming, I entered a strange, new chapter in my Hil experience: Boredom.

Hil stepped out on stage in a cute tight black T-shirt and jeans combo with a studded red belt and pink checkered Vans sneaks singing "The Girl Can Rock." Like, yeah, maybe a little, I guess.

I was kind of impressed that she had a real live band backing her. Sure, they looked like they were being forced to smile — and smile real big, at that. But they were actually playing pretty good, and that was nice.

I also liked that Hil didn't dance or attempt to hide a lack of skills with backup dancers. She just sang, ran around a lot, shook hands and waved to the crowd. Take that, J. Lo!

Trouble is, Hil's singing was what I had the biggest problem with last night.

On her new harder-edge songs, Hil doesn't so much sing as shout out her vocals, like, real loud. This was particularly difficult to take on her new hit single, "Fly," an uplifting and kinda cool song that I wished had been given to someone with a better voice to make famous first.

No one seemed to care when Hil went on to shout her lyrics on other songs, too. But it really proved how not-so-good a singer Hil really is. That was when I also started to pay attention to some of the lyrics Hil was singing. These weren't as bad as her singing skills. But they came pretty close.

The chorus of the song "Weird" — "Don't you think it's weird?/ Weirder than weird" — isn't just bad, it's "D in Mrs.-Matsumoto's writing class" bad. And after referring to arch-

enemies — Lindsay Lohan, maybe? — in "Haters," as "traitors to the human race" and "queen(s) of superficiality," was the best summarization Hil could come up with really, um, "What a drag?"

Ick, Hil!

The coolest part of the night was probably seeing scads of parents bonding with their kids. My favorite was the dad in a dress shirt with lots of tongues on it — Mom told me later it was a Rolling Stones shirt — twirling his daughter in the aisles to "Come Clean." Hundreds of parents happily waved glow sticks along with their kids for the whole concert, too!

Most of the kids in the almost-full arena seemed to be having a blast, as did more than a few of their parents. And that, at least, made me happy.

Confused, maybe. But happy nonetheless.

The crowd booed a bit when Hil ended her one-song encore with, "Thank you! Give it up for my band!" and then just disappeared off stage. But Mom told me later that if Hil was singing "My Generation" by some band called The Who for an encore, it was probably best that the night ended early.

I should also note that Mom cringed and shook her head when I told her about Hil singing the lyric, "Hope I DON'T die before I get old," on that one. She turned up The Big Kahuna real loud on the car radio all the way home after that!

I guess I'm just gettin' old myself.

Until I blog again ... Much love to all Hilary fans. It was fun while it lasted ...

Duff'sEnuff04

P.S. Congratulations to 9-year-old Kawaiala Ku from Queen Ka'ahumanu Elementary School.

Kawaiala won a contest sponsored by OC16's "Heroes" television show to go to the concert and meet with Hil backstage before the show.

Hil and Kawaiala will be on "Heroes" next Sunday at 8:30 p.m.

What made Kawaiala special enough to win? She does lots of community service work, is a junior pedestrian officer and volunteers to teach kids to read three times a week. All this, and she manages to keep up awesome grades at school.

Congrats again, Kawaiala! Hope you enjoyed Hil's show more than I did.