Hey everyone!
Whew, what a week it’s been!
First off, a shout out to everyone for keeping the community strong!! It’s awesome to more people joining in the dialogue, and posting introduction videos of themselves. That just adds so much more personality and “humanness” to everyone here. So, yay everyone!
Though I’m trying to keep up with the forum, it’s been challenging, mainly because of all these new Bachido projects being started!! 
First and foremost in the Epic department:
1) Affordable shamisen!
The project of converting my designs to CAD in order to make cheap shamisen with CNC was enthusiastically started several months ago, but the sheer brain-frying effect that is learning CAD brought it to a halt.
Recently, an instructor at MIT (who bought Shamisen of Japan) had already put my designs into CAD and even sent me a pic of a Tenjin he made with a CNC machine! Being that he’s already done it, there’s little sense in me trying to learn it all to attempt to make something that probably would be much worse than what he has achieved. So, we’ve teamed up to make affordable shamisen. 
Needless to say, a very very exciting week, and this goal is becoming more and more a reality.
The next step will be to find factories that can make it affordably. Off hand, China, Thailand and such areas would be ideal places. If anybody can think of any places, please share.
2) A more immersive Store!
When I had asked people what they like about stores in Japan, the most common response was the ability to talk with the owner or see the product being used. So in Japan, Masahiro and I sat down with all our products and, with Kevin and Yousuke’s help, made little informational videos to embed in the Bachido Store. Masahiro introduced the products himself, so this week has been mainly spent translating them. I’ve got a few more videos left to translate, so hopefully they’ll be up later this week.
3) The Bachido Mon!
As Bachido gets more and more legit, the need for an official mon (the round symbol) is becoming clear. This week, Masahiro and I have been designing a mon and as of yesterday, have come up with a rather final version. Very simple and elegant. It will look very classy on the Bachido swag! (Also upcoming!) Speaking of which…
4) Bachido Swag!
Design ideas for the shirt are stewing, so I think we’ll start with a something simple, like a cup with the bachido mon/name on it. It’ll be quick to make, so then we’ll have something which we can proudly drink as the shirt is being designed.
5) Forum “Likes”
The idea for highlighting important posts with Likes (so they don’t get hidden after a day or so) has not been forgotten. Luke’s just been busy with stuff. He’ll get to that at some point, hopefully soon.
6) Prep for Instructional Videos+
After the store upgrades and swag is completed, I will do a few things in preparation for making instruction videos.
a) Kawahari again. My latest kawahari is much better than the previous, but compared to Kevin and Masahiro’s, I could afford to stretch it a little tighter.
b) installing Windows 7. My current installation of XP is getting a little buggy, so I’d like to get that rectified before filming starts. My computer may blow up, which is why I’ll have the swag/Store videos released so everyone will have fun stuff to see while I repair my computer, if need be.
c) Set design. We’re gonna install another camera on a boom/crane thing so it’ll be easier to film the POV perspective.
7) God shots!
Oh my… this espresso machine is amazing. You will see it in action in tomorrow’s blogcast.
8) Notation program
And though it’s not a project I am working on, I’m very excited to see the progression of Karl’s notation maker program. It is gonna be amazing, let me tell you. In Sapporo, Masahiro showed me the official shamisen notation maker program he uses. In all honesty, I told him that Karl’s version, even as a beta, is so much easier to use. Like making it in CorelDraw (which is what I did), the official program requires the user to manually line up all the notes on the lines, which is very tedious, frustrating and time consuming. When I told Masahiro that Karl’s version snaps the numbers into place, he was very excited as well.
And with that, I think we have a lot to be excited about for a while!
Keep up the twang, everyone!
