Creature Comforts

Your choices in San Francisco hotels are overwhelming. The prices can be too. So during our staff visit to the City by the Bay, we looked for reasonably priced hotels that had charm, location or both. We came back with 14 ideas on places to bed down. It's not a complete list, but it is eclectic, like the city itself. Mystic Hotel. This property, which opened in April, stands on a tunnel-adjacent block of Stockton Street that you'll never see on a picture postcard, yet it has style, as do the Burritt Tavern bar and restaurant downstairs.

McLaren is just weeks away from unveiling at the Geneva Motor Show full details on its next P1 supercar. While we'll have to wait until then to learn of the car's powertrain, we've already seen the exterior up close . Now McLaren is giving us a look at the interior. The automaker released a trio of images of the inside of the million-dollar-plus supercar. Like the chassis and exterior body panels, the minimalist interior is largely constructed from carbon fiber to save weight.

On his second day in Los Angeles, Suraj Sharma was on a mission. "In-N-Out Burger is gonna happen whether or not anything else happens," said the lanky 19-year-old star of "Life of Pi," who was visiting the U.S. for the first time from his home in Delhi, India. In town in June for a few days of promoting the film and visiting college campuses, Sharma was determined to experience some of California's creature comforts - the miraculous weather and a double-double, animal style.

On his second day in Los Angeles, Suraj Sharma was on a mission. "In-N-Out Burger is gonna happen whether or not anything else happens," said the lanky 19-year-old star of "Life of Pi," who was visiting the U.S. for the first time from his home in Delhi, India. In town in June for a few days of promoting the film and visiting college campuses, Sharma was determined to experience some of California's creature comforts - the miraculous weather and a double-double, animal style.

THIS winter, it's easy to bring the great outdoors indoors without ever leaving the house. Animal motifs in a menagerie of visual styles including rustic country, candy-colored photorealism and cyber Pop are breathing new wildlife into even the most minimalist homes. This fun-fauna trend is making tracks throughout the accessories industry and is particularly accessible in the warm and fuzzy category of decorative pillows.

One of the musicians who makes "The Lion King" roar, herds of antelope leap and imitates the fluttering of birds in flight is percussionist Eric McKain. During the musical's extended Southland engagement, the Angeleno has been enjoying all of the comforts of home. Exotic weekend Traveling to someplace beautiful, relaxing and romantic, that's my ideal weekend -- to go to the Caribbean, preferably the Bahamas, Jamaica or St. Martin's, that's the best.

There are no hoops above the outlined basketball courts in the recreation areas. The pay phones hanging on cell walls have no dial tone. But those are about the only finishing touches remaining at the new Todd Road Jail, which was dedicated Thursday before a crowd of more than 200 county residents and officials. Inmates will begin arriving next week.

Ducks don't vote, eagles don't return a profit, whales can't bring short-term capital gains, manatees never have to meet a payroll, hairy-nosed wombats are underachievers, Kirtland's warblers are ineffective against high interest rates and no pearly-eyed thrasher of record ever licked a communist. By all the usual American standards of what is holy or useful, the rest of the animal kingdom ranks lower than a poor relative.

EVENTS Giving new meaning to the phrase "creature comforts," the all-inclusive Aliens to Zombies Convention celebrates extraterrestrials, the undead and otherterrifying critters. Participants include special-effects artist Todd Masters, "The Walking Dead" actor Michael Rooker, "Dark Skies" producer Bryce Zabel, and monster makers Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff Jr. Roosevelt Hotel, 7000 Hollywood Blvd., L.A. 7 p.m. Fri., 11 a.m.-1:30 a.m. Sat. $50-$75. (323) 665-8080. http://www.alienstozombies.com

Laura Marling, diminutive, steely-eyed and sometimes appearing on stage in a trench coat, could've been dreamed up by England's version of Daniel Clowes as a comic antihero, trudging through the London fog when she's not drolly mumbling to herself about romantic failure. That isn't to say that she's defined as some figment of male imagination; the same way she doggedly works her nylon-stringed guitar, she'd scratch her way out of the page before that happened. Only 21, Marling is a folk musician highly decorated in her native England, most recently with an NME Award and her second Mercury Prize nomination that she eventually lost to PJ Harvey.

American hotels and resorts increasingly are putting on the dog for guests who vacation with pets, says  travel website TripAdvisor , which has created a list of its top 10 picks for pet-friendly resorts in the U.S. The list features properties that rate highly with TripAdvisor readers and includes city lodgings and beach resorts.  Among the properties listed: a New York City hotel that offers the services of a dog psychic, a...

In its prior incarnation, the grille was hideously toy-like. And the car, as a whole, lacked the sort of styling panache buyers of luxury sport sedans demand when they lay down $40,000-plus. But the Acura TL for 2012 has gone under the knife and gotten a Heidi Montag makeover to enhance its physique and overall allure. Now in its fourth generation, the TL has been plumped to slightly larger proportions and pumped up under the hood. Honda Motor Co.'s luxury marquee has put a lot of effort into finessing its bestselling sedan, upgrading its style, performance and fuel economy in recognition of the significance of the entry-level premium vehicle segment.

The past and present converge in a leafy three-quarter acre compound in the heart of Brentwood Park. The two-story main house ? traditional English in style with Gothic touches ? was extensively remodeled in 2006 with a raft of creature-comfort upgrades. A private, gated yard at the rear of the property holds a ranch-style guesthouse and a converted stable that look much the same as when they were built in the 1920s. Producer Mike Fleiss, creator of "The Bachelor," and his wife, Alexandra Vorbeck, who designed the home's landscaping, purchased the property in 2004 and promptly took the aging main house down to its studs.

As the economy stumbles along in recovery, bargains continue to define the marketplace, whether it's dinner at McDonald's, refreshing a winter wardrobe at Target or buying an affordable car. Take the new Chevrolet Cruze, a compact sedan that advances the economically induced ideology of building fuel-efficient cars that customers might actually want. Like many compact and subcompact cars of late, the Cruze, which starts at $16,995, is equipped with features that haven't traditionally been available on budget cars.

L.A.-area baseball fans have two very distinct brands from which to pick. Dodger Stadium is a sun-scorched blast to the senses, a celebrity-laden rock concert with an Ansel Adams backdrop. Angel Stadium is a beachy barbecue, with less glitz but more creature comforts. Pick your passion. Life's all about making choices. With the season about half over, here is a look at how the ballparks stack up against each other in an enormously subjective report card on the basic fan experience.

The soprano in the blue dress sang a sad tune about a sacred mountain. Soon the women brought tissues to their eyes and began sobbing over memories of home. That's when the cameras moved in -- crowding for a better angle, zooming in, panning faces, until many of the defectors ducked their heads in embarrassment and shame. For the first time, officials on Wednesday allowed outsiders into the Hanawon resettlement center where North Korean defectors are debriefed.