If your hotel requirements include a Downtown L.A. location, a heavy dose of pretention, a rooftop bar with waterbed chambers, a pool, and Cool Hand Luke projected on the building across the street, a bathtub that seats 4 comfortably, a supply of magazines you're not cool enough to read, and a giant foam foot sculpture in your room, I cannot recommend The Standard highly enough.

I'm on my second (of, probably, 2) callback interview trip, and the travel agent for my host firm clearly has too much cash on hand and a weird sense of humor. I will say this, though: I actually feel like I'm in L.A. this time around, and I think the reason is because I have a car this time. You're just not experiencing L.A. if you aren't driving. It's also allowed me to detour past my old apartment in Koreatown, to drive through Hollywood, and to eat dinner at Koraku in Little Tokyo--all very good things. Also, you could do a lot worse than to wander over to The Pantry at 7 a.m. (because your internal clock still thinks it's 10) for breakfast, including my one Pantry essential: the grilled sourdough. So so good.