David Rees draws the political cartoon “Get Your War On,” but in his new day job, he is an artisan — of pencil-sharpening.
“With an electric pencil sharpener, a pencil is meat,” he complained to the Los Angeles Times.
For $15 (postage paid), Rees will lovingly, painstakingly sharpen a customer’s favorite pencil or one of his own classic No. 2’s and ship it in a secure tube to protect its newly super-sharp point.
Rees also gives periodic exhibitions, wearing safety goggles and apron, to demonstrate his guarantee of “respect” for the instruments — “an authentic interaction with your pencil.”
Ezperience
is highly
over rated 
The investigative journalism website ProPublica.org, curious about the workers being hired in the mortgage industry’s massive, rushed re-examination of home loans previously foreclosed upon but which may have been processed illegally, began scouring the classified ads in October and November.
Result: Though most employers “preferred” college graduates with credit-industry experience, it was clear from the entry-level wages offered that many were accepted only with high school educations, with at least some barely familiar with the concept of mortgages.
One staffing agency, offering $10 to $12 an hour, sought a “Supervisor of Foreclosure Department,” but that position, also, required only a high school diploma.
(Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa Fla. 33679 or go to www.newsoftheweird.com.)