Tag: weird

Nikola Tesla, two planets, and El Cajon!

Whenever I walk through downtown El Cajon, I make sure to pass by the Unarius Academy of Science. I peer through the front windows, wondering what weird new thing I might see.

Yesterday, I did find something new.

Yes, there were still displays concerning lost Atlantis, the future arrival of the Space Brothers, a Map of the Interplanetary Confederation, and students engaging in psychodrama as they reenact past-life experiences. But, lo and behold, there’s now a display that celebrates Nikola Tesla!

It’s titled The Unobstructed Universe of Nikola Tesla.

Taking photos through the windows of the building is very difficult due to strong reflections from the street. But here we go.

One sign calls Nikola Tesla a cosmic visionary and a dweller on two planets, and “If you wish to find the secrets of the universe, think of energy, frequency and vibration.”

This display seems apropos, as their website states how Unarius offers “…a course in self-mastery, based on the interdimensional understanding of energy–the joining of science and spirit.“

I don’t get the dweller on two planets, however. Tesla actually journeyed to Mars?

One of the Unarius webpages explains how Tesla thought we could communicate with beings from other planets. In 1899, he believed he had received a message likely from Mars.

Yesterday I also noticed the parking lot near the Unarius Academy of Science has a new mural. Here it is:

Have you seen their cool flying saucer car? I spotted it once during a walk through Coronado.

Just for fun, here it is again!

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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 X.

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AI experiment: Martians arrive in San Diego!

I had a fun idea for a new AI experiment!

Last night I was rereading H. G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds, when suddenly I wondered… What crazy images would the AI Drawing Assist function of my Samsung Galaxy smartphone create, should I use the text prompt: “Martians arrive in San Diego” and tap Generate.

I had my phone create the images in Pop Art style. That explains why words are sometimes splashed as if in a comic book. In many instances, the AI misspelled San Diego or produced absurd words.

I selected the best, most diverse images out of many that were produced.

Most had boats in a bay and flying saucers descending above a city that resembles San Diego. Certain skyscrapers like those of the Manchester Grand Hyatt are recognizable, even if oddly drawn or positioned.

A few surprising images had the green Martians themselves!

This is the third time I’ve experimented with the AI Drawing Assist on my phone. Would you like to see some more bizarre results?

Strange images of “Balboa Park at sunset” are here.

Eye-popping images of “San Diego 100 years in the future” are here!

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I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!

I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X.

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Uncharted Elsewhere: surreal art at San Diego Library!

Do these works of art represent the “real” world? Are they entirely fantastic?

Surreal pieces now on display in the San Diego Central Library’s art gallery might seem strangely familiar–but why and how?

The free exhibition is titled Uncharted Elsewhere. Stimulating pieces created by nine regional artists transport the viewer into uncharted territory located somewhere in the human mind.

I visited the Central Library’s 9th floor Judith Harris Art Gallery this afternoon and was wowed by the creativity of artists who have a special gift. Through sculpture, textile, painting and works on paper, they make curious people stand a very long while and wonder.

Are those eggs? Are those faces? Are those webs? Is that plant life? Are those landforms? What are these weird, oddly familiar things?

How did these fantastic visions come into existence? And what in our complex world is possible or real?

How, I wondered, might these visions relate to my own experiences in life?

The artists themselves, in their descriptions, explain how, through abstraction, they aim to produce enigmatic, mysteriously organic environments. Their works induce introspection, and perhaps enlightenment.

If you like weird, imaginative works of art, you’ll love Uncharted Elsewhere. For me, it’s one of the most engaging exhibitions I’ve experienced in this gallery.

You can check the artwork out for yourself through January 4, 2026. Learn more about the exhibition, the artists and the gallery hours by clicking here!

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I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!

I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X.

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AI images: San Diego 100 years in the future!

What will the city of San Diego look like 100 years in the future? I was curious how today’s generative AI might picture it.

I used the prompt “San Diego 100 years in the future” with the AI Drawing Assist on a Samsung Galaxy phone. The images that were produced were rather startling!

Futuristic buildings, exotic elevated walkways and new modes of transportation…but how realistic is it to believe such radical transformations could be made in only one hundred years? (Um…anti-gravity?)

Nevertheless, this is pretty cool!

I see identifiable aspects of the present city skyline are incorporated into images, as well as San Diego Bay. Notice how certain recognizable buildings are arbitrarily positioned or weirdly altered by the artificial intelligence?

I love how lush green vegetation sprouts everywhere including the roofs and sides of many buildings. I love how curvy and absurdly complicated some of the conjectured architecture is!

(Earlier this year, I performed a similar experiment. I used the term “Balboa Park at sunset” to produce generative AI images in the same way. The results were bizarre. This is what I got!)

Okay–now for today’s experiment. AI draws the future of San Diego…

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I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!

I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X.

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Weird, wonderful Saturday in San Diego!

You gotta love it!

It’s Saturday in San Diego–but not just any Saturday.

It’s the Saturday of Comic-Con 2025!

The crowds have grown larger and larger. Cosplay is absolutely everywhere. Huge lines have formed outdoors at the various offsite activations. (Wait up to four hours? No thanks! I’ll wait until Sunday.)

The endless weird and wonderful sights around downtown San Diego were more than enough for me!

I should probably think up clever captions for these photos. But it’s lunchtime. And I really need to take a quick nap before heading out again!

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If you’d like to view my coverage of Comic-Con so far, which includes hundreds of cool photographs, click here!

I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X.

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Unified Intelligence Taskforce’s Black Archive in San Diego!

Would you like to help defend Earth from paranormal and extraterrestrial threats? UNIT’s (Unified Intelligence Taskforce) Black Archive has arrived in San Diego, where you can join forces with Doctor Who to investigate all things weird and terrifying!

The Doctor Who UNIT Black Archive is open free to the public in San Diego through this Sunday during Comic-Con. The super cool offsite is located on MLK Promenade, across Harbor Drive from the San Diego Convention Center. It’s open 10 am until 8 pm each day, except Sunday when it closes at 5 pm. When I visited the activation on Thursday afternoon, the wait was perhaps 15 minutes.

In addition to the exploration of Black Archive relics, visitors can take an outdoor photo op with Doctor Who props and purchase exclusive Doctor Who merchandise.

My photos provide a hint of what you’ll experience.

Doctor Who fans will go crazy. There are references to every sort of Doctor Who monster, creature and alien, and Easter Eggs concerning past and future shows abound.

The atmosphere inside the Black Archive is indeed creepy. It feels real!

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If you’d like to view my coverage of Comic-Con so far, which includes hundreds of cool photographs, click here!

I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X.

Feel free to share!

Bizarre AI images of Balboa Park!

I performed an experiment today. I asked the AI Drawing Assist on a Samsung Galaxy phone to create artistic images of “Balboa Park at sunset.”

Well, the AI, as you can see, produced some rather bizarre results!

Sure the towers and facades appear superficially like those in Balboa Park, but take a close look. The configurations of buildings, towers, fountains and reflecting pools are truly weird.

In the above photo, why are two towers side by side? Why is the pool located where it is, and so curvy? Why is there a big mountain in the background? Low mountains in reality are far to the east, and Balboa Park’s grand entrance at the California Quadrangle is to the west where the sun sets.

Why is image construction so apparently arbitrary?

It all makes me wonder: How exactly are these images generated? Is there no accurate reference to countless photographs on the internet? Is the AI just too primitive at this point in its development? Is it capable of creating only fantasy worlds? Someone out there with technical expertise might expound on this.

Of course, when the AI images are created, the user is cautioned: Image generation may produce unexpected results. No kidding!

Here are more bizarre examples. The only prompt I used was “Balboa Park at sunset.”

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I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!

I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X.

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Four short stories about possible ghosts.

Have you ever seen a ghost? Or something bizarre and inexplicable that you thought might be a ghost?

I’ve heard stories from various people over the years about ghostly experiences, including weird encounters at San Diego’s Whaley House, said to be the most haunted building in America. (You can read several of those stories, told by Whaley House Museum docents, by clicking here.)

I love to write bits of very short fiction. A couple days ago I published a short story about a possible ghost sighting.

I’ve written four of these “ghost” stories over the years. If you’re someone who enjoys thought-provoking tales and possibly a slight shiver, you might enjoy reading them.

Unheard Words can be read here.

Ghost Wind can be read here.

Backward Man is found here.

And the very, very short story that I just completed, Touching a Ghost, which in fact might not concern a ghost, can be read here.

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I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!

I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X.

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Gerardo Meza street art in Hillcrest and Bankers Hill!

The distinctive street art of Gerardo Meza (@mezarte) has been showing up in both Hillcrest and Bankers Hill!

I’ve noticed several electrical boxes painted in the last year in the two neighborhoods by the prolific artist. His colorful street art can be observed in communities all around San Diego.

Should you walk through San Ysidro just north of the Mexican border, you’ll find many examples of his work. Gerardo Meza is Chairman of the Border Public Arts Committee. Among other accomplishments, he’s also Coordinator of Art Box San Diego and Cofounder of the San Diego Art Society.

Gerardo’s artwork with its Mexican flavor is unmistakable. It can be weird, distorted, humorous, frightening, sexy, hip, mythological, ironic… It’s very original and definitely attracts your attention!

My first four photographs are of two boxes in Hillcrest…

And here come photos of two boxes in Bankers Hill…

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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!

I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!

I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X.

Skeleton in window of The Brain Observatory!

The Brain Observatory in downtown San Diego appears to be an intriguing place. It’s been open for a year or so, if memory serves. It’s located in the space that the SDSU Downtown Gallery once called home.

According to their website, The Brain Observatory is not only a research institute with state-of-the-art scientific equipment, but students and visitors can examine a large collection of donated human brains.

There is also an art gallery at The Brain Observatory. Check out a fascinating exhibition featuring six artists here.

As I walked down the sidewalk past The Brain Observatory early this morning, I noticed a skeleton sitting inside one window holding a brain.

Does the skeleton intend to place the brain into its own skull?

Or is this simply a bit of fun for Halloween?

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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!

I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!

I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X (formerly known as Twitter)!