New York, August 18 – We wake up Thursday morning, and there’s Hilary Duff, singing! What a nightmare! She’s only 17! It gets worse! Gasp - Al Roker is here too. This must be a bad dream. Wait, we’re in Rockefeller Center, and there are hundreds of people around. But we’re not naked, so what kind of nightmare is this?

Yawn. Starting to wake up. Oh, this is not a dream. It’s the NBC "Today" show, and Hilary Duff is doing a sound check at 5:45 A.M. And we’re here. Hi Katie.

Totally worth getting up in the middle of the night. It’s not every day that someone with Hilary’s long and distinguished career debuts her “best of” album, appropriately titled "Most Wanted". We’ve been panting for this ever since falling in love with Hilary’s first two albums.

Obviously, others in the crowd felt the excitement. One young fan’s mother got so overwrought that she fainted, around 8:20 A.M. As they carried the woman away, her daughter trailed after her, looking dejected. But the Duffster can have that effect on people who have been standing around for two hours.

Meanwhile, we almost fainted later in the afternoon when Hilary covered her hot cornrows with a black wig for her "TRL" appearance.