I’ve been using Priceline pretty extensively to get hotels this year. I kind of go through periods of using it, and then forgetting it exists. I think I first used it in…1999? Our best deal so far, this time around, has been the Hilton in Charlotte’s University area last weekend. $99 off what we’d have paid if we’d gone through the hotel’s reservation system.

This morning, I  got us two nights at the Crowne Plaza in Lexington for next weekend—for the same price we paid to stay at the kinda scuzzy Quality Inn & Suites there earlier this year (which was before I re-remembered Priceline). I love Crowne Plazas. (We stayed two nights in the one in Knoxville, and last year for a Godsmack concert concert we Pricelined the one in downtown Charlotte.)

Priceline is my new BFF.

I wish I’d remembered it back in January for the Marilyn Manson show. Instead we stayed at a place across the street from a homeless shelter. It wasn’t much of a step up from the homeless shelter. I’ve stayed at plenty of dives, but this was the first time I was leery of lying on the hotel’s sheets. Also, despite being drenched in my own and other people’s sweat, I was not getting in that shower.

We were headed out of Baltimore on our way back to Asheville when Mark said, “It’s kind of silly to drive all the way home today just to leave for Knoxville tomorrow.” So I called Hertz and the dog kennel to extend our car rental and Jack’s vacation, then we stopped at a wifi spot to Priceline a hotel…and here we are in Knoxville! (With three buses parked behind the hotel. Not bad, huh?)

We got here around 7:00pm, and I dragged Mark out for a bike ride (which is how we ran across the buses) (and it didn’t really take much dragging). It’s a lot hillier here than Baltimore, but either it’s not as hilly as Asheville or the new bike I got Friday (shhh–it’s part of a sekrit prodgekt) just kicks ass on hills. I guess we’ll see when I get a chance to ride it in Asheville.

(But: OMG I LOVE THIS BIKE.)

And now, several hours later, I’ve jury-rigged an Internet connection (Mark’s Macbook has no problems connecting here; mine throws up nothing but blank web pages) and caught up with my work email. And we’ve ordered bananas foster and coffee from room service (which sounds like a grand idea now, but wait till I have to sign the hotel bill when we check out–eeeesh).

Can’t wait to get my work out of the way tomorrow and go for another bike ride, BEFORE THE NIN SHOW.

(Did I mention I love this bike?)

OMG a NIN show.

..the only day we went. :)

Gates opened at 10; Mark and I were out of our hotel at 8:00. For some reason I didn’t picture there being parking at the subways station (what? I know. Go figure.) so we walked, and it turned out to be a longer walk than it had looked like on Google Maps. Took the subway to the bus to Pimlico and waited around for the gates to open. And of course we were at the south entrance, and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club were scheduled on the north stage (at noon, but IT’S NEVER TOO EARLY TO GET TO THE BARRIER), so I power-walked across the festival with Mark…somewhere behind me.

And we got on the barrier. But we didn’t just get on the barrier—we got there in time to catch 2/3rds of BRMC soundchecking. Nice. (Robert was missing. He appeared to be a little stunned by having to be awake so early in the day.)

BRMC had a very short set with just eight songs on their setlist and a ninth squeezed in before their time was up. They played: 666 Conducer, Weapon of Choice, Berlin, Shuffle Your Feet, Ain’t No Easy Way, Salvation, Six Barrel Shotgun, Spread Your Love and Whatever Happened To My Rock ‘N Roll (Punk Song). Leia’s great on drums. No disappointment there at all. Mark was happy to get to see Salvation live.

Robert Levon Been, BRMC

Peter Hayes, BRMC

Leia Shapiro and Peter Hayes, BRMC

BRMC finished at 12:45, and we didn’t have another band we were super interested in seeing till 6:20. We could have camped out at our barrier spot all day long, but we have pit tickets for Stone Temple Pilots and Nine Inch Nails later this month (twice each, plus some great reserved seats for a NIN show, too), so we felt like we didn’t have to be right up front for either band today. In fact, I was looking to get a further back spot for NIN, one that’d give me a view of the whole stage.

So we wandered off, caught some other bands (but not more than a few songs from each—nothing was really grabbing us…and we practically ran from the She & Him show after a song and a half), watched the aerial sculptures and the Bindlestiff Family Circus—

(a little lesson in safe sex, courtesy of the Bindlestiffs)

—ate bad festival food, drank horrid festival drinks ($10 for a margarita that tastes like gasoline. Oh fabulous!), and we saw an Xtracycle in real life!, which was actually one of the highlights of my day—

!!!!

—and then it was time for STP. Which conflicted with Bob Dylan’s show on the south stage, so Mark headed over that way for Bob, and I held our spot at the north stage and enjoyed STP. They came on twenty minutes late, but once they showed up, they were good. I’m stoked to see them next Sunday.

Stone Temple Pilots

Before and after STP, I ran into some trouble with the porta potties because by late afternoon they had completely run out of toilet paper. Now, it wouldn’t kill me to go without toilet paper once, but. Women before me had hovered, and hoverers splatter. Did you hear me? HOVERERS SPLATTER. All over the fucking seat. So: hot, stinky portajohn with piss all over the seat and no toilet paper to clean it up with and an empty hand sanitizer dispenser. I just held it till we got back to the hotel. Yuck.

Finally it started to get dark, and NIN, who had been given the longest set of any band scheduled over the two days of this year’s Virgin Mobile Fest, came on.

OMG NIN.

And all I have is this blurry picture. Sorry!

The stage/light show was…. There are no words. It was just unbelievable. They put on a fantastic show. And the only thing going through my head through all 1 hour and 55 minutes of it was “OMG NIN.” Cannot wait to see them closer up on Tuesday.

And that was our day in Baltimore. Back on the road tomorrow.

Jubilee has their first video out, for their first single, “Rebel Hiss.”

Better yet, they say their second single, “In With the Out Crowd,” will be available in a week or two. It’ll include three B-sides that won’t be on the full-length album. Mo’ info.

Pitchfork put up rehearsal footage of NIN doing “1,000,000″ with Robin Finck and Justin Meldal-Johnsen. It’s some pretty cool shit.

RIP George. :(

We’re at the cabin we’re renting in New Hampshire. It’s sweet. Rustic and cozy, yet plenty of space & equipped with wifi. It rained all day and the power went out in the late afternoon, but when we came back from dinner it was back on. We’re all working our way through the The Walking Dead series lately—and all trying to read the same copy of volume five at once. Tomorrow: Reesa! (And Rhode Island for the boys.) And hopefully not quite so much rain.

Annnnnnnnd I didn’t get to bring my bike. It got fixed in time, but then Hertz rented us a Rav 4, which didn’t work with my bike rack. I tried to fit it in after we got our luggage in, but no go.

Then, an hour or so up the road, it hit me: my bike has quick-release wheels. I totally could have fit it in the Rav.

In New Jersey we broke down and ended up with a Sebring instead. And not the convertible kind. My bike wouldn’t have fit without the rack, and we wouldn’t have had the rack even if I had brought the bike in the Rav…so in the end it was good I forgot about the quick-release wheels.

I miss biking. Running around Manchester is going to be way less convenient on foot and bus Friday. What can you do, right?

I’m off to the South Carolina Book Fair tomorrow. It means waking up early and sharing a hotel room with two other women. It also means I need to update my Zen Stone with fresh content tonight ’cause it’s a 3-hour drive each way, and I’ve listened to the current content to death.

But the trip will be fun! And I’ll get to hang with Wendy!

Other than updating the Stone, my plans for tonight are to kick back and read the rest of Nekropolis. I hadn’t meant to be halfway through it already—I’m not that fast a reader—but here I am.