A 20-story tall building wrap is now going up for 2022 Comic-Con!
This afternoon I spotted workers applying the enormous wrap on the Park 12 high-rise apartment building, which is near the parking lot where the Petco Park Interactive Zone will be located.
The building wrap appears to promote Teen Wolf the Movie, an upcoming feature film that will be streaming on Paramount+. At least, that’s my guess right now!
This will no doubt be the first of many gigantic building wraps to appear all around the San Diego Convention Center during Comic-Con. That gives you an idea of how big this epic international event is!
I’ve also noted three large Disney banners hung a week or so ago on the parking garage of the Hilton San Diego Bayfront. They promote a very different sort of entertainment: the Disney Cruise Line. The Disney Wonder cruise ship is homeported in San Diego!
(Fun fact! The ship HMS Surprise, of the Maritime Museum of San Diego, was used in the filming of the Disney movie Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides!)
If you’d like to view my coverage of Comic-Con so far, which includes hundreds of cool photographs, click here!
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
The extraordinary exhibition, which occupies nearly all of the Comic-Con Museum’s large first floor, celebrates the history of Spider-Man.
Visitors can see dozens of pieces of original art used in the creation of the comic books, and important props from many of Spider-Man’s immensely popular movies. The superhero’s appearance on television and in video games is also documented.
I spent a full hour today just reading the many displays and viewing incredible, historic artwork.
Originally drawn from the imaginations of Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, Spider-Man has evolved over time, as new writers and artists have built on Spidey’s complex story. Societal norms and comic book sensibilities have shifted over the decades, but one thing has been fairly consistent. Spider-Man represents a youthful, optimistic “everyman” hero, who copes with life’s ordinary problems while battling fantastic villains.
A good crowd had already arrived as the museum opened at ten o’clock this morning, and I saw numerous families and excited kids–many wearing Spider-Man shirts and costumes. There are many opportunities to take selfies, and the atmosphere created inside the dynamic exhibition is truly exciting.
Walking through, I felt my old passion for Spider-Man flaring again. The exhibition makes it obvious why the wall-crawler remains one of the all-time favorite pop culture icons!
During Comic-Con, a shuttle bus will run between the San Diego Convention Center and the Comic-Con Museum. I encourage Comic-Con attendees to come up to Balboa Park and check out the exhibition. It’s well worth the time and effort!
Spider-Man: Beyond Amazing will continue at the Comic-Con Museum through the end of 2022.
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
Cool San Diego Sights documented a variety of interesting events five years ago.
In 2017, during the month of July, I visited Old Town, North Park, Normal Heights, Little Portugal and Balboa Park, and I watched the big Fourth of July parade in Coronado. But easily the most exciting event was Comic-Con!
Looking back, I see that my camera was super busy as I walked around downtown San Diego during Comic-Con week. I photographed colorful offsites, lots of cosplay, celebrities, even a bit of insanity!
For your enjoyment, I’ve collected some of my favorite blog posts from 2017 Comic-Con . . . plus a related event in Mission Valley featuring cosplay pets! Click the upcoming links to see LOTS of photos!
Click the following links to see many photographs…
This blog now features thousands of photos around San Diego! Are you curious? There’s lots of cool stuff to check out!
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A car has been specially altered to honor those who’ve served in the United States Armed Forces.
Andy “Bluebat” Mercado (@bluebatmobile) told me today in the parking lot near the San Diego Automotive Museum that the intent is also to honor his own Veteran father. Yes, today is Father’s Day.
I’d seen Andy’s blue and yellow 1997 Acura NSX, with distinctive U.S. Navy markings, and a tribute to deceased Blue Angels pilots printed on the rear window, at other special events. But today I noticed the words Blue Angels decorating both sides of the car had been changed to the Top Gun movie logo. The change was made a couple of weeks ago.
Of course, the original TOPGUN (United States Navy Fighter Weapons School) was located at San Diego’s old Naval Air Station Miramar. Pilots competing at the school were an essential part of the first Top Gun movie, whose blockbuster sequel opened a few weeks ago.
I see from a decal Andy supports various causes. I spotted The Wingman Foundation, Wounded Warrior Project, and PTSD Awareness.
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
A large army of Ghostbusters has converged on San Diego to repel an assault of ghosts on our city!
The many Ghostbusters, each equipped with a charged proton pack, tend to show up during Comic-Con, but they also like to fight off phantoms, wraiths, specters and slimers during parades and other special public events!
I’ve spotted ECTO-1 and lots of different costumed Ghostbusters through the years.
I was researching the upcoming Comic-Con (which I’ll be documenting again this year during my downtown San Diego walks), when I suddenly realized June 8 was Ghostbusters Day!
So enjoy a belated Ghostbusters Day with some cosplay and other fun photos I’ve taken for Cool San Diego Sights…
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
You can easily explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on my blog’s sidebar. Or click a tag! There are thousands upon thousands of photos for you to enjoy!
Walk beside the ocean in La Jolla and you might observe the curious statement: BRAVE MEN RUN IN MY FAMILY.
The bold words appear in a large outdoor mural, on a wall of the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego high above Coast Boulevard. The humorous wordplay is coupled with the silhouette of a tall ship under many sails running before the wind.
The title of the mural is Brave Men of La Jolla. It’s by Southern California pop artist Ed Ruscha. Created in 1995-1996, the image is acrylic on PVC coated fabric and measures a whopping 24.75 x 36 feet.
I took photographs of the mural from MCASD’s Edwards Sculpture Garden during my visit to the recently renovated museum a few weekends ago.
If the sly “brave men run in my family” quote seems familiar, it was originally spoken by Bob Hope’s cowardly dentist character “Painless” Peter Potter in the 1948 comedy The Paleface. He says these words when faced with danger, and then he promptly runs away!
Would the brave men of La Jolla do the same?
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
You can easily explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on my blog’s sidebar. Or click a tag! There are thousands upon thousands of photos for you to enjoy!
An extraordinary panel was held this afternoon at the Comic-Con Museum in San Diego.
The Science and Science Fiction of Star Trek’s Tricorder brought together four panelists who are helping to lead our way into the future. It will be a future of almost unlimited possibility, replete with groundbreaking technologies what were barely imagined when the original television series was created.
Dr. Erik Viirre, who acted as moderator, is Professor of Neurosciences at UC San Diego; Dr. Paul E. Jacobs is Chairman and CEO of XCOM Labs, and former executive chairman of Qualcomm; Dr. Yvonne Cagle is a physician, professor, retired U.S. Air Force Colonel, and former NASA astronaut; Eugene “Rod” Roddenberry, the CEO of Roddenberry Entertainment and head of the Roddenberry Foundation, is the son of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry and Majel Barrett. He is also an executive producer on Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: Picard, Star Trek: Lower Decks, Star Trek: Prodigy and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.
The first thing the audience learned is that all four panelists are fans of Star Trek! (Did you know that the former head of Qualcomm, many moons ago, was founding member of Star Fleet Club La Jolla?)
The next thing we learned was that Star Trek has inspired generations of scientists, engineers, inventors and visionaries. Many technological advances we know today were first conceived by Gene Roddenberry and the experts he turned to for advice when writing the show. He wanted Star Trek to be believable and largely based on science.
We were reminded how Star Trek’s communicator became the actual flip phone, and how today’s smartphones have essentially become Star Trek’s tricorder. Think about it!
The various multi-function tricorders carried by Spock, McCoy, and other Star Trek characters could provide a user with all sorts of useful information. A tricorder could be used to ascertain location and weather, or analyze the physical environment or obtain cultural information. A tricorder could be used as a universal translator. It could even be used to assess one’s medical condition.
In many ways, your smartphone does all of those things today!
We then learned our own future contains even greater possibilities.
The panelists explained how a smartphone, or handheld mobile device, used by an ordinary person, could become a practical health tool. For example, such a medical “tricorder” could analyze the sound of irregular breathing or a cough and determine a likely medical condition or disease. And such a device, by detecting signals or other data from the user’s body, could provide a warning that a stroke or heart attack is imminent.
Projects like that are underway today!
Five years ago, The Qualcomm Tricorder XPRIZE was a $10 million global competition to incentivize the development of innovative technologies capable of accurately diagnosing a set of 13 medical conditions independent of a healthcare professional or facility, ability to continuously measure 5 vital signs, and have a positive consumer experience. Read more about it here.
The co-winning Canadian team, CloudDX, propelled by their Tricorder XPRIZE participation, has gone on to commercialize remote, connected patient monitoring hardware and software that anyone can easily use at home!
And that’s just the beginning.
On the International Space Station today, 250 miles above Earth, astronauts wear a Smart Shirt that senses body temperature, heart rate, blood oxygen, EKG, and even the activity of heart valves!
Can you imagine a virtual reality doctor’s visit in your future? (Oh, wait. Star Trek envisioned this already. USS Voyager’s Emergency Medical Holographic Doctor.) Advances in artificial intelligence and tele-medicine have just barely begun.
(And yes, virtual reality was envisioned many decades ago. It was the basis for many tangled plots on Star Trek: The Next Generation. The holodeck!)
Those who sat listening to this extraordinary Comic-Con Museum panel learned all of this, and more. We saw that, in the hands of thoughtful people who desire positive, healthy outcomes, our technological future can be very bright, indeed.
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
To Kill a Mockingbird. Moby Dick. The Omen. Cape Fear. Roman Holiday. Twelve O’Clock High. The Boys from Brazil. The Guns of Navarone. Spellbound. The Yearling. Gentleman’s Agreement. On the Beach. The Snows of Kilimanjaro.
Gregory Peck was one of Hollywood’s very biggest stars.
In 1962 he won the Academy Award for Best Actor. During his film career, he received five Best Actor nominations.
Gregory Peck was born in La Jolla. He attended San Diego High School and San Diego State University (then called San Diego State Teacher’s College).
His father, Gregory Pearl Peck, was a chemist and pharmacist–who worked in San Diego’s Gaslamp Quarter at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Market Street.
The McGurck Block, 1887.
From 1903 to 1984, the Ferris and Ferris Drug Store occupied this building. For a long time it was San Diego’s only all-night drug store and, for a period of time, actor Gregory Peck’s father worked as the night druggist. The building was also used as a post office and as a ticket booth for the Coronado Ferry. The upper rooms of this three-story Italiante [sic] Revival building were used for rented rooms and became known as the Hotel Monroe in 1929.
Gregory Peck with his father, from Photoplay (1945). Public domain photo from Wikimedia Commons.
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
Yesterday a large group of dedicated Top Gun movie fans from a Facebook group visited the USS Midway Museum.
They all were having a blast, some wearing movie-inspired flight suits, checking out exhibits at San Diego’s popular aircraft carrier museum, taking photos near an F-14 Tomcat fighter jet, before heading off to dine at Kansas City Barbeque, where the bar scenes in Top Gun were filmed.
It was interesting to watch their enthusiasm for the classic movie, whose sequel Top Gun: Maverick will be debuting in one week on May 24. I loved the original Top Gun when it came out in 1986, myself!
As I toured the USS Midway yesterday, I noticed a variety of connections the historic aircraft carrier and its present-day museum have to the actual TOPGUN aviator school and its pilots depicted in both the original and upcoming movie.
An F-14 Tomcat on the flight deck of USS Midway. These fighter jets co-starred in the original Top Gun movie, providing exciting, incredible visuals.A fan group is photographed during their Top Gun Days event aboard USS Midway in San Diego. Three actual Navy pilots pose in front.Nearby on the flight deck is an F/A-18 Hornet. This fighter jet was used as an adversary during the original Top Gun. The F/A-18E/F Super Hornet will be flown by the characters of Top Gun: Maverick.One of the pilot ready rooms inside the USS Midway aircraft carrier. VFA-151 Ready Room One is where F-18 pilots gathered for briefing before and after flights.A look inside USS Midway’s F-18 ready room. During Operation Desert Storm, F-18 Hornets were launched from this long-lived aircraft carrier, which was built at the end of World War II.What it would have been like sitting in the F-18 ready room. The characters in Top Gun: Maverick are F/A-18E/F Super Hornet pilots, part of a special detachment aboard an aircraft carrier.White board at front of the ready room, with mission and aircraft details.An exhibit aboard the USS Midway Museum details the history of TOPGUN, originally the United States Navy Fighter Weapons School located at NAS Miramar, aka Fightertown USA.Exhibit concerns TOPGUN – The Early Years.The Navy Fighter Weapons School was established on March 3, 1969 at NAS Miramar in San Diego, California. TOPGUN’s objective was to develop, refine and teach air combat maneuvering tactics and techniques to selected fleet air crews…Museum exhibit video shows the Tactical Aircrew Combat Training System TACTS in operation.Visitors to the USS Midway Museum can climb into an F-14 Tomcat cockpit, located on the Hangar Deck.Maverick call sign painted by the cockpit of the F-14 Tomcat.The two-seated cockpit’s front seat, where an F-14 pilot sits facing his flight controls. The bubble canopy gives the pilot all-round visibility.The rear seat of the F-14 cockpit, where Goose in the original Top Gun movie flew. This is where the fighter jet’s Radar Intercept Officer sat.
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
The San Diego Automotive Museum is an incredible place every auto enthusiast must visit. In addition to unique and rare cars they have lots of great motorcycles, too!
One motorcycle now on display is Evel Knievel’s “Stratocycle” from the 1977 movie Viva Knievel!
The uniquely modified motorcycle–a Harley Davidson XLCH Custom Sportster–has wings and a rocket-shaped exhaust. The Stratocycle is so cool it was adapted for a popular toy!
It had been several years since I last experienced the San Diego Automotive Museum. The current displays are more awesome than ever. Walking around, your eyes will pop out of your head!
1938 Mercedes-Benz 540K Special Roadster.
You might notice I’ve been visiting many local museums the last couple of weeks. I’m taking advantage of the San Diego Museum Council’s “The Big Exchange” reciprocal free admission program. It lasts through May 18, 2022. Learn more here!
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
Cool San Diego Sights! 