Rentals

Pali Mountain Retreat & Conference Center, 30778 State Route 18, Running Springs; (909) 867-5743, http://www.paliretreat.com . Retreat packages (open to groups of 25 or more) range from about $70 to $120 per person per night (including bunkhouse bed and cafeteria meals). Rocky's Roadhouse, 32150 Hilltop Blvd., Running Springs; (909) 939-0501, http://www.facebook.com/RockysRoadhouseRS . Sandwiches and salads up to about $9. Patio in back. Bear Mountain, http://www.bearmountain.com . In Big Bear Lake about 100 miles east of downtown Los Angeles.

In its quest to transform a metropolis built around freeways into a land where bicyclists and sport utility vehicles can amicably share the road, Los Angeles will soon reach another benchmark - a citywide bike-share program. At a news conference Thursday with Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and L.A. Clippers basketball star and cycling advocate Caron Butler, executives with Southern California-based Bike Nation announced plans to begin rolling out their bike-share program in downtown Los Angeles in April.

Badger Pass Ski Area in Yosemite National Park partly opened last weekend for cross-country skiers and snowshoers after a winter storm dumped more than a foot of snow in the area. Since then, more storms brought enough snow for it to open Friday for downhill skiers and snowboarders, though the tubing park remains closed. Also as of Friday, visitors will be able to take a free shuttle from the park's lodges to the ski area. The deal: Here are some of the savings to be had this season at Badger Pass: -- Two for Tuesday offers two adult lift tickets for the price of one ($47)

Marcy Cook embraces the holiday season. The tell? Start with the teddy bears dressed as Santa. More than 1,500 stand sentry around and inside her Newport Beach waterfronthome. Garland and strings of lights threaten to strangle the place like kudzu. "We decorate a little bit, if you haven't noticed," said Cook, 69. "It's the highlight of the year for us. " Each Christmas, Newport Harbor is ablaze in lights as homeowners go to extraordinary lengths to complement the city's annual Christmas Boat Parade - an indelible tradition that renews itself Wednesday night and continues through Sunday.

If you sometimes take a bus or a cab to get around  because you don't need a rental car for more than a few hours in, say, San Francisco, a car-sharing program could be just what you need. Getaround is a membership car-sharing service where members can rent another member's car or rent out their own vehicle. It's available in San Francisco; San Diego; Portland, Ore.; Austin, Texas;  and Chicago. It is being beta-tested in Los Angeles and several other markets. Membership is free to drivers 19 or older with a good driving record.  Getaround vehicles must be from 1995 or newer and have less than 150,000 miles.

The animated feature "Brave" debuted at the top of the DVD sales chart, but couldn't knock "The Amazing Spider-Man" from the top of the rental chart. Pixar's "Brave" was the top selling DVD and Blu-ray disc in the U.S. during the week ended Nov. 18, according to research firm Rentrak, but the No. 4 rented movie. In its second week on shelves, the "Spider-Man" reboot fell to No. 2 on the sales chart. Other high-profile new releases were the Oliver Stone-directed drama "Savages," which debuted at No. 3 on the sales chart, and Ben Stiller-Vince Vaughn comedy "The Watch," which launched at No. 4. Neither was immediately available to rent from Redbox or Netflix and thus did not make Rentrak's rental chart.

SAN FRANCISCO - Lawmakers on Tuesday approved what appear to be the nation's tiniest apartments - 220 square feet, including the bathroom, kitchen and closet - in a pilot program aimed at creating more options in this prohibitively expensive housing market. The city already allows for construction of 290-square-foot micro-units. But Supervisor Scott Wiener backed the reduced minimum size in hopes that the apartments would rent for $1,200 to $1,500 a month, a steal compared with San Francisco's current average studio rents of $2,000.

DVD and Blu-ray sales were dominated by the debuting "The Amazing Spider-Man," while rentals were ruled by the returning "Prometheus. " Holdovers "The Campaign" and "Disney Fairies: Secret of the Wings" were strong sellers, and "Magic Mike" and "The Avengers" were still strong rentals after many weeks on the charts. Below are the DVD charts for the week ended Nov. 10 (sales) and Nov. 11 (rentals), with data provided by Rentrak. Top 10 DVD and Blu-ray sales 1. "The Amazing Spider-Man" (Sony)

A beachfront house in Malibu that was rented at different times this summer to Usher and Sean Combs is for sale at $16.75 million. FOR THE RECORD: An earlier version of this article said singers Usher and Sean Combs paid $100,000 a month to lease this Malibu house. Although it rents for that amount, the terms of their leases were not disclosed. The Cape Cod-inspired two story, built in 1994 and sitting on more than half an acre, has 80 feet of beach frontage, a front lawn and gardens.

While sales of new video game discs have been plummeting all year, it turns out gamers are spending their money to play in other ways. During the third quarter (from July through September), total spending on video games -- new and old, purchases and rentals, physical and digital -- totaled $1.07 billion in the U.S., according to research firm NPD Group. That's down only 1% from a year ago. Those figures are more heartening to the game industry than monthly figures for new physical game sales and consoles that are released by NPD. In total, spending on physical games dropped 16% during the third quarter, and spending on games on digital platforms jumped 22%. Video game publishers make no money from used game sales or rentals (besides the initial sales of those titles)