This week:
Coffee extraordinaire James Ong buys a shamisen, the instrument he’s been dreaming about playing for years.
We come back home to check out my flaccid kawahari job on the front side of the dou, and find the solution is simply tightening the skin more. Not easy, as I have a fear of breaking the skin.
On the subject of breaking skin, we watch Grant ‘Shamisensation’ Reimer pass his black belt test. Congratulations to him! Grant has been training hard, five days per week for for 2.5 years, and really deserves it.
He had asked me to play shamisen during the knife fight segment of the test. My playing started okay, but went downhill as I got distracted by the amazing display in front of me.
I can’t wait for your skin to be on there and for it to be finally finished!
Thanks for playing at my test bro! You were awesome and made it so much more fun/epic.
Woot.
congratulations, grant! I think the skin stretching and coffee analogy or pointed out relation actually made sense in this episode . . . same with striking the skin too softly to get a good sound as I think Kyle mentioned earlier or flying a remote control helicopter which I am gonna do now after another coffee . . .
Eric/Karl: Hahaha!!! Excellent question, and excellent response! Got a good laugh. Anywho, though I’m very passionate about my “Dark Master”, I actually only have one coffee drink per day, two at most.
Going to Japan is where I check myself to see if I became addicted, as I quit cold turkey and rarely drink coffee there*. No headaches/tiredness so far. My next “check up” is next month (Sapporo for a week). We’ll see how I do.
*as I’ve yet to find anything I’d truly call “coffee” there. I do, however, get the yellow carton of sweet and milky コーヒー, 'cause it’s nostalgic of the first time I went with Grant.
Hopefully James (who’s now a Bachido member) will start posting vids and stuff.
They sell coffee and it’s not bad, just nothing I’d drink if I’m not addicted (which I’m not, I can stop at any time! :P). For a quality pick-me-up, their green tea is really awesome. As long as you’re in Japan, might as well get tea. Either that, or bring your mazzer.
Don’t worry. At the Bachido festival, I’ll make sure there is a barista there. James (who was featured in this week’s blogcast) is really talented barista, so perhaps I can get him in charge of the concession stand.
