Postcolonial Death Match Preview Clips

I posted clips from all 11 album tracks as a set on Soundcloud. Take a listen!

Latest tracks by DJ Dual Core

http://soundcloud.com/dj-dual-core/sets

Downloads will be available at iTunes, Amazon, eMusic and other stores soon. I don't know yet whether or not there will be physical CDs.

CD Mastering Scheduled for Postcolonial Death Match

On Thursday, Nov. 11 I will be taking my final mixes for Postcolonial Death Match to Catamount Recording for mastering by Travis Huisman. Catamount is one of the premiere recording studios in the midwest and has been used by artists including Greg Brown, Stone Sour, House Of Large Sizes, Robert James Waller, Living Sacrifice, Johnson Co. Landmark, The Nadas, Blue Band and Callie Weiss.

Windows XP, Finally, A Version Of Windows We Will Miss

Windows XP is no longer "the previous version of Windows." With Windows 7 shipping, it is now two versions old. That is when it is time for most operating systems and major applications to be put out to pasture. The beginning of the end of Windows XP is fundamentally different from the waning of other software, especially other versions of Windows.

In 1999, when I started my current IT job, I would grumble "Every time I work on a Windows 3.1 PC I hope it will be the last." Shortly after Windows 2000 became common I started saying the same thing about Windows 95. As XP became the standard I grumbled similar things about Windows 98.

Now Windows 7 is shipping. All of the people who don't like Windows Vista are cursing it all the louder as they throw their arms around the latest and greatest Windows. Funny, nobody seems to be cursing Widnows XP--not even me.

Looking back at the Windows XP era it is amazing what a long, solid run the OS has had. Released eight years and six days ago (October 25, 2001) this OS has aged with remarkable grace, especially considering the severe failures of its predecessors[1][2][3][4]. Even though service packs [1][2] and other updates have made radical changes to the guts and some features of Windows XP, sitting down to use or service and XP machine feels very much like it did eight years ago.

Windows XP mostly works pretty well. That may sound like faint praise but its about as good as it gets for an IT professional talking about Windows. Unlike Windows ME you can stop an XP box from crashing. Unlike Windows 98 it has half a clue about security. Unlike Vista you can run it on a pre-2007 PC without throttling all of it's best graphics features. Unlike Windows 2000 you can do something about it being ugly.

Whether or not Windows Vista deserves all of the hate it has received is debatable. What is not up for discussion is that it's direct predecessor is unique in that the only people who truly hate it are those who hate Windows altogether. But many of us can't be Microsoft free and have been forced by circumstances to make peace with Redmond. We, the pragmatic and the fighters in the trenches, need to look back at the last eight years and try to grasp what went right. We can only hope that the people sending the software forth from Redmond are asking themselves the same question.

Massive Album Prep This Weekend

Last week I decided I had enough music that didn't suck arranged and mixed to put out an EP. I thought five or six songs from the last year were ready to fly and that "Postcolonial Death Match" was the right name. The only question was whether or not it was worth it to pay for professional mastering.

I happen to live just a few miles from Catamount Recording, probably one of the best commercial studios in the midwest. It seems a shame not to take advantage of that. This isn't New York or London, so I'm not talking about mountains of money but recording engineers need to eat too.

Before making any decisions I started digging through the files on my computer to see what other songs I might have forgotten about. It turns out I had several nearly finished songs right there on the computer. Over a little more than a day this weekend I was able to finish arranging and mixing three unique songs and two remixes.

What it boils down to is that I have more than enough non-sucking material for Postcolonial Death Match to be a full-length album and it's good enough to easily justify professional mastering. My work is cut out for me. The next month or two should be exciting.

Veteran of WWII Speaks Out for Marriage Equality

This man has the moral authority to say things I can not.

Thank you to Karen for posting this.