Say, Neighbor, Nice Wood

Lots of things on your lawn might offend the neighbors. Your car, for example, especially your car on blocks. Or a lawn jockey. One of those little black Old South ones? Completely offensive, yeah. But a tree stump? Well, okay, maybe. Depends on the stump, really.

If, for example, the tree stump in question is Jean Paul Parshall's tree stump, then there might be a problem. Because Jean Paul Parshall's tree stump is — hm, how shall we phrase this? — well, Parshall's tree stump is a six-foot penis. Yep — according to Washington State's Olympian newspaper, Parshall has been receiving complaints from neighbors ever since he used a chainsaw to carve the remains of the tree in front of his rented home into a giant phallus (and no, we're not ashamed to admit that that's one big phallus). Parshall even planted a pair of American flags atop the wooden wiener, just to show off his true-blue patriotism, and he reportedly plans to move it to his porch and drape it with Christmas lights come the holiday season. And while neighbors aren't thrilled about driving their kids past the sexy stump on their way to and from work, Thurston County Sheriff's Captain Dan Kimball says there just isn't much that can be done. "People have the right to have poor taste," says Kimball, obviously something of a freedom fighter. "We don't have a county ordinance that I know of that says you can't carve your tree into a penis." Man. Gonna have to sew up that loophole, eh?

Warm You Up, Hon?

A feller gets busy sometimes. In Argentina, they get that.

See, between grappling with that country's slumping economy and worrying about the heartburn-inducing state of world affairs, well, there's just not a lot of time left for a man to grab an afternoon cup of joe and still have a hour or so to take in a little nudie dancing at a caballeros club in the evening. Because a feller gets busy sometimes. And in Argentina, they get that.

That's why Carlos Suad opened Café Con Pelvis, a — you guessed it — nudie coffee shop in Buenos Aires. Actually, it's not totally nudie — according to a Dow Jones News Service report, the waitresses at Pelvis wear skintight Lycra, lingerie, rhinestone-studded bikinis and knee-high boots (though not, presumably, all at once). Still, "business has been good," according to Suad, who abandoned his computer importing gig after his café took off. According to the report, a cup of coffee at the shop will run you about a buck and a half. If you order it with a little extra "sugar," though, it'll cost you about six times that, although that hasn't stopped some four to five hundred clients a day from packing the Pelvis since the café opened in Buenos Aires' financial district about a month ago. Of course, not everyone is thrilled, and one of those not-thrilled folks is local university student Marta Pirelli. "To me it's a sad sign of the times when a woman has to dress like a stripper just to get a better tip," says Pirelli, and she may be right. But perhaps she just doesn't realize how busy a feller gets sometimes.

Don't Move or I'll Massage Your Neck!

You always hear about those Swedes, about how they're sooo sex-positive, and sooo sexually savvy. And hey, maybe they really are — after all, fifty million pornos can't be wrong, right? But if a report in the Dala-Demokraten newspaper is to be believed, not all Swedes are quite so savvy.

Specifically, we're thinking of an unnamed woman who, not too long ago, was working as a cashier at a supermarket in the town of Falun when an equally unnamed man worked his way through the store. According to the paper, the woman suspected the man of shoplifting and demanded he empty his pockets, and brother, did he ever, pulling out a sex toy and reportedly holding it in a threatening manner. "She asked what I had in my pocket," said the forty-four-year-old man. "So I pulled the vibrator out and held it up in front of her. I then asked her if she wanted it in her. It was more like an offer or a joke." But the check-out girl didn't see the humor in it — nor, apparently, did she perceive the lewdness of the man's "offer." Rather, she told the judge, she thought he was going to stab her with the vibrator. And though we're not sure how he would have done that we do know this: it couldn't have hurt too badly. The man has been jailed for his "joke."

Quotes of the Week

"I can be driving along and see a woman walking down the street. If I like the way she walks or dresses I think, Phwaoar! She is gorgeous! But will I sleep with a woman again? Probably not."