I was at a demonstration of this kind of product during a home & garden show earlier this summer. The vendor was selling the mushroom 'plugs' in baggies. She had a large log in front of her that she had used a hand-drill to put holes in, all around. As her demo she would put a plug in the hole and with a few taps of her hammer it would be in level with the surface of the log.
So if you'd like to save on shipping, I'd suggest buying the starter plugs and get your log from the backyard.

My roommates gave this to me for my birthday. The thing never bloomed any shrooms. Maybe it wasn't humid enough, maybe there wasn't enough light, maybe the directions needed some more specifics, maybe they sent me a log for sixty bucks. I don't know.

this kind of mushroom helps the dead log to be used for the living shroom but you might want to think about how if there was a mushroom log growing in every one's home that the mushroom would fulish and begin to fuluish on good living trees which would create an inbalance causing alot of dieing trees. Do you really think it worth a buck to fuck with the trees that give us the air we need to breath? to grow to much corn is one thing but to help a mushroom that lives on death is another? I guess all good things come to an end even if i made a dollar doing in the plantent EARTH! Do we ever learn

Apparently we don't learn because Jim can't even spell correctly. The word you're looking for is "flourish". And shiitakes only grow on dead logs/stumps so how can they be causing the death of living trees? Unless you mean that trees will be cut down to support the shiitake log industry. In which case you should have said that and not that mushrooms are killing trees.

I got a mushroom log for christmas. It has been soaking for 2 days now and hasn't become water logged yet and is still floating. Also in the drilled holes flush with the surface of the log is appears to be styrofoam. Is this the to be removed or is protecting the spores? Help!