AlexLandis.com » News/Activism

Images From The 2008 Democratic National Convention

Alex — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 00:54:04 +0000

Questions: Did you watch the video? What did you think?
Comment about it here!

I’m a Denver, Colorado native and have lived here my whole life. When I heard that the 2008 Democratic National Convention was going to be held in Denver I was stoked! The 2008 presidential election is going to be one of the most important elections of our lifetimes, and having the DNC in my home town was something that I had to participate in. With over 50,000 people from around the nation, media coverage from the around the world, tons of celebrities, all coming to Denver, how could anyone living in Colorado not become involved?

I knew that the convention was held in Denver from August 25th to August 29th, so the Sunday before the convention began, I purchased a small camcorder to capture my experiences during the week of the DNC. I had a lot of fun shooting video during that week, and I managed to film some pretty cool events that happened during that time. I attended the free and awesome Rage Against the Machine concert to support the Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW), as well as the following protest to end the war. I interviewed several people downtown as well to get their opinions of the DNC, and I will posting all the cool videos I shot during that week soon.

In the mean time, here is a YouTube teaser video showing a series of video stills form the video I shot that week, and below the video you can see all the photos individually with my commentary as well. I hope you enjoy the video and photos, and keep coming back because there is more coming soon! Thanks!

If you have trouble viewing the youtube video, click here.

The 2008 Democratic National Convention was from August 25th, to August 29th, 2008.

The Daily Show was at the DNC, and these two guys were part of the show.

Posters supporting numerous causes, events, and groups could be found throughout Denver.

All over Denver you could see patriotic support for the DNC.

Police from all over Colorado were in Denver to make sure things went ok during the DNC.

There were many protests during the week, and most of them went peacefully.

This is self-explanatory…haha

Protesters and media coverage during the Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) protest

All over the 16th street mall downtown you could see people supporting their causes.

More protesters supporting IVAW.

Bullhorns always help you get your point across!

“This was an awesome poster!”

MSNBC covered the events of the DNC live almost nonstop.

Local strip bar Shotgun Willie’s parading their car through town!

This is from the “Pictures of you” Images From Iran art piece.

Left to Right: James Laurie (Flobots), Zach De La Rocha (RATM), Tom Morello (RATM), Wayne Kramer (MC5), and Boots Riley (The Coup)

This is my brother participating in the IVAW protest. Go Jared!

The Rage Against the Machine concert to support IVAW was EPIC!

AIDS Walk fundraiser, I need your help!

Alex — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 23:19:54 +0000

Click Here to Donate to AIDS Walk Colorado 2008 now!

I work at a hospital and will be participating in the 21st Annual AIDS Walk Colorado & 3rd Annual AIDS run on Saturday, September 6, 2008. This event helps raise much-needed funds for people living with HIV/AIDS and to prevent HIV infection in the state of Colorado.

New treatments are now available that were unheard of ten years ago. These have decreased the number of AIDS related deaths; unfortunately, more people are being infected with the virus everyday.

I’m taking donations, and my donation goal is to collect $500 by September 6th. By sponsoring me, you will help continue to provide services such as case management, food bank provisions, emergency financial assistance, housing assistance, support groups, prevention, and educational outreach for those in need.

You can donate any amount you like, and donations can be made with a major credit card through a secure, online donation page

On behalf of those who are living with HIV and AIDS and those who have been lost, thank you for your generous support.

Follow This Link to visit my personal web page and help me in my efforts to support Colorado AIDS Project. Thank you for helping me reach my fundraising goal!

A New Beginning

Alex — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 23:12:12 +0000

When I created this web site a year ago, I had intended it to be a place where I could express myself by sharing my thoughts and ideas with the online world. I quickly realized however how difficult it was to maintain a blogging web site and to write new content consistently.

I’ve read several articles online from successful bloggers that the key to having a popular blog that people visit on a regular basis is to create “quality content”. In my effort to create quality content that I thought people would like to read, I ended up rarely posting anything because I thought what I had written wasn’t good enough.

While I agree that writing quality content is very important for any blogger, writing consistent content is equally important. A blogger that writes one spectacular article a year probably is not going to be very successful either, because people lose interest quickly if you aren’t providing new writing.

I believe now that the key is writing quality content in a timely manner. I’m sure this is difficult to do, but this is what I’m going to aspire to. So, with this thought in mind, I’m going to change the dynamic of how I post new articles on my site.

For the next couple months, I’m going to write my articles in more of a “free-flowing” manner, similar to how I might write in a journal. This should allow me to be able to write more freely and regularly. My only real concern is that I will try to write something relatively decent and worth reading.

After writing this way for a couple months, I’m hoping to increase my web site’s visibility and gain some readers. If it doesn’t work, I’ll try something new. That’s the great thing about owning a web site, if something doesn’t work, it isn’t too hard to change it or try something different.

I look forward to bringing my site back into the swing of things!

Comments are always appreciated.

Helium Articles on AlexLandis.com

Alex — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 00:45:57 +0000

In an effort to provide more frequent and better quality articles on alexlandis.com, I have started writing topics for Helium.com. Helium is an article submission web site, in which writers can submit articles on a vast number of topics, and earn money for them because Helium shares it’s advertising profits with its writers.

The articles I write for that site, I will also post here. I will also give these articles a specific category called “helium.com” so you can find which articles have been written specifically for Helium.com topics. Hopefully this will mean more writing from me at better quality. Writing at a regular pace has been an issue for me in recent months and this is an effort to help me get back into the swing of things.

If you’d like to check out the articles I’ve currently written for Helium.com, you can do so here.

Thanks again for checking out alexlandis.com and for your continued support!

Rest In Peace, Heath Ledger

Alex — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 02:56:23 +0000

Heath Ledger died today at the age of 28. The Academy Award-nominated Australian actor led a very promising career starring in such films as Ten Things I Hate About You, The Patriot, Monster’s Ball, A Knight’s Tale, Brokeback Mountain, and finally as the role of the Joker in the new Batman movie The Dark Knight to be released this summer.

It always saddens me when a talented person dies before their time. I see (as I’m sure most of you see) the potential of these young celebrities, and it’s a shame when that potential is extinguished. We are left trying to understand why someone with such a bright future can be taken from us.

I think that we as people are always looking for a hero, someone to root for, and expect great things from, despite what the news reports show on tv. When I speak of hero, I don’t mean Superman, or the person saving people from burning buildings. I speak more specifically of a person who is genuine, strong, capable of great things, a leader, and a good person.

When I think of Ledger, I think that Ledger was a person people could root for. He was a celebrity that hadn’t succumbed to the corruptibility of a celebrity lifestyle, unlike so many of his young peers, and I believe we admire that. This is why it shocks us when such a person is gone, because it wasn’t expected in any way.

So often we see in the media, the spectacles of crazed celebrities, that the good ones, the ones who live admirable lives, go unnoticed. I despise our media for focusing only on the negative side of people and society. It insults me that the media treats us like we’re gluttons for misery, suffering, and human embarrassment. This isn’t true for me.

I hope that Heath Ledger has gone to a better place, and my condolences go out to his family and friends. He will be missed.

AlexLandis.com has a new layout!

Alex — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 08:51:21 +0000

Hey,
I wanted to announce that the site has a new layout that I think looks much better than the old layout and will function better as well.

Here are the major changes to the new layout:

Better graphics
Better color scheme
Better use of space/screen realty
Less bulky
New archive page layout
Social Bookmark links at the bottom of each post

If you encounter any problems with the new layout, be sure to let me know by posting a comment. Thanks!

October 2007 Update

Alex — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 19:58:33 +0000

          For the month of October, AlexLandis.com experienced a few problems. The main problem the site experienced was my lack of time being able to work on it. I started a new job and was filming every weekend in the month, which really cut into my time. I am going to make a serious effort to prevent that in November.

          Also, I started receiving comment and email spam last month that I had to deal with. I have added measures to prevent spam on the site, and there hasn’t been any spam since, which is good.

          Despite the lack of time I had, the site still continued to do well. Site traffic increased 16% from September and the Alexa rank increased from 3,294,869 to 2,431,655. As long as the site improves each month, I am happy.

          Next month I expect things to continue to do well, and as always, I appreciate your continued support of AlexLandis.com!

Horror Movies @ AlexLandis.com!

Alex — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 14:00:43 +0000

     After realizing too late that I should have added this to the September Update post, I decided to make a separate post informing you that I’m a huge fan of Halloween and like to celebrate it as much as possible.

     Although I’ve been forced to stop Trick-Or-Treating by law because I’m too old/big, and can no longer grift Halloween treats from my little brother, I still celebrate by watching horror movies.

     I want to celebrate Halloween on my site, so what better way than showing some classic horror movies this month!?! Each Wednesday this month I’m going to show a different classic horror movie. Here are the dates and what movies I am going to show for each:

October 3rd, 2007: Tarantula
October 10th, 2007: Nosferatu
October 17th, 2007: The Haunting
October 24th, 2007: Psycho
October 31th, 2007: Night of the Living Dead

Be sure to stop by and check out each of these awesome flicks!

EDIT 10-26-07:
Some of the movies are no longer available to host, so I had to change the movies listed for each day and will be retroactively posting them on the site. I apologize for the inconvenience. Here is the new list:

October 3rd, 2007: Nosferatu
October 10th, 2007: The House On Haunted Hill
October 17th, 2007: The Last Man on Earth
October 24th, 2007: Bad Taste
October 31th, 2007: Night of the Living Dead

Thanks for your patience!

September Update

Alex — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 05:55:50 +0000

     Now that September is over I wanted to recap on how things went on the site compared to August. My ultimate goal for alexlandis.com is to continually improve the site by increasing the amount of traffic, the quality of my content, and the overall rank of my site on the net. As long as I make an improvement, no matter how small, I have succeeded.

     With that in mind, I am very happy with how September turned out. Traffic increased 35% since August, which I think is great! I managed to post 12 entries (including this one), compared to the 4 I wrote in August. I would like to be writing between 15-20 a month, but I think we’re on the right track so far.

     The site’s ranking in Alexa has done well in my opinion, jumping from 5,625,066 at the beginning of the month, to 3,294,869. I estimate that by next month that the site’s rank should be somewhere around 1,000,000. It’s not the best rank in the world, but like I said, the goal is to make an improvement.

     As far as user feedback, 99% of it was great, with only one comment of my use of inappropriate language in some of my writing. It’s ok, you can’t please everyone, Fuckin’ A!

     I think September turned out great, and October will be even better. Thanks for the continued support my internet-compadres!

Diana DeGette’s Email

Alex — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 05:55:41 +0000

     After writing, “Cyber Bias: The Threat of a Two-Tiered Internet” I sent a message to our congress from Save The Internet.com informing them of the threat to the net neutrality principle that many ISP’s are wanting to impose, and I received an email from Colorado’s congresswoman Diana DeGette responding to my message. This is what she had to say:

—————————

Dear Friend :

     Knowing of your interest in net neutrality, I would like to provide you with a brief update of recent events in Congress.

     As you may know, I serve on the Energy and Commerce Committee which has jurisdiction over telecommunications matters. Last year in committee, I voted for an amendment to H.R. 5252 , the “Communications Opportunity, Promotion, and Enhancement Act”, which would have preserved net neutrality. Unfortunately, this amendment failed. I believe that the concept of net neutrality is an historic one that has contributed to the success of the Internet and that it is vital to codify this concept so that access to content remains in hands of users, and not the companies that provide Internet access.

     H.R. 5252 was later voted on by the full House. Once again, I voted for an amendment to preserve net neutrality, and once again it failed. Unfortunately, the bill passed the House by vote of 321-101. The principle of nondiscrimination is critical to keeping the Internet open, equitable and free. I believe that passing this legislation without a strong net neutrality provision could seriously hinder continued innovation and economic growth in the technology sector.

     Again, thank you for letting me know your views. Please feel free to visit my website at www.house.gov/degette . There you can sign up for my e-newsletter to stay up-to-date on current events in Congress. I look forward to our continued communication.

—————————

     The H.R. 5252 amendment that Diana is referring to is part of the original Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement Act of 2006 (COPE Act). The COPE Act is a bill that benefitted ISP’s, while hindering the net neutrality principle. Ed Markey created an amendment that would have supplemented the COPE Act with a prohibition against service tiering. The COPE Act was passed but the Markey Amendment was turned down, so the bill has no significant network neutrality provisions.

     It’s unfortunate this happened, but it’s nice to know that our congresswoman is doing what she can keep the internet free for Americans. If you are in support of a free internet, I urge you to check out these sites dedicated to fighting the cause for net neutraility:

Save The Internet
Public Knowledge
Common Cause