Hair-raising stuff

Firstly, I've found that if I type my LJ entries in a word document with my company letterhead, my boss is less likely to look over my shoulder.

Secondly, for the second time in about four days, I've had someone ask me "are you just keeping your hair long because you think it's hiding your receding hairline?" Both worded it that way, "because you THINK it's hiding", as if they meant to add "because it ain't hiding shit, you balding FREAK!" but were merely too polite. The answer is no, I'm keeping it long because I think when it's longer it makes my freakishly enormous head look only somewhat enormous. But I could be imagining that.

I wonder if I'm actually mostly bald with just a really blatant comb-over and I'm just psychosomatically blocking it out and thinking I have thick beautiful hair. Unlikely, because I see my scalp quite clearly every morning when my hair is wet. I'm going bald. I'm hoping to find my life partner sometime before I go all-the-way bald, but other than that I don't really care. Or do I? Maybe it's time to give Sy Sperling a call.

Or maybe it's just my fate that I slowly go from looking like Tenacious D's Jack Black to resembling Tenacious D's Kyle Gass.

(no subject)

I went book shoping today. I got Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, Nabakov's Lolita, Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, and Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises. After getting the first three, I decided that I wanted at least ONE where I didn't know what the story was. Also, I've seen movies based on the first three, and not on the last one, so that's another advantage. I shall start with Of Mice and Men because it is by far the shortest. We'll see if we can get back into the swing of this reading thing. I read reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeealy slowly.

And now, back to hockey! LET'S GO RED WINGS!

What I do for a living

First, what my company does: We make electrical equipment for manufacturing machines. I shall now use my Dixie Cup analogy: Think of a Dixie cup. How was it made? Did a highly-trained artisan aprentice for years before finally learning how to make a great dixie Cup on his own? No, of course not. It's all done with big-ass machines. My company sells the parts of those machines that move, specifically the motors and the controls for the motors. We have motors on machines that are making everything from computer chips to Eggos to cars to plastic bags to...

So, my job. I'm an engineer. I deal specifically with the high-performance motors and controls. I have one product that I am the point-man on. For that product, i do everything that need to be done to get that product released, including doing competative analyses and helping with the writing of technical manuals and testing software and so on. We're a Japanese company, and almost all of the products are designed in japan, so a lot of work has to be done to prepare it for release to the North American market.

In addition to all that stuff, I also help our customers use our products. Talking to 'em on the phone and stuff doing technical support. About 80% of the questions are in the manual, and another 10% are the result of poorly worded manuals (which are usually not my fault, it's the fault of bad translators). The other 10% are legitamite problems or questions.

It's an okay job. It pays well and it's a good industry to be in. Still, it's an office job and has the typical problems associated with offices. But I could do a lot worse.

I want to be a voice artist for a living. I can do lots of fun voices. What do I have to do to get started in this field? Anyone? Anyone?