Another curious juxtaposition. I didn't know your diving pterosaur was there when I posted the diving horse. :.)

@Lauren - I was the one who posted this item, and the point you make was at the forefront of my mind as I did so. I can absolutely guarantee that there was no intention to mock the lady's obesity per se. I considered specifically asking readers not to make hateful comments about the lady herself (and I'm pleased to note that the typical reply is one of "sadness" rather than something derogatory of her body habitus). Editorial control allows the author to delete selected comments, so I thought in that regard that it was safe to post the item.

With regard to the "neatness" of the subject matter, what the video demonstrates - once you get beyond the initial "yuck" factor - is how inadequate knowledge (or poor choices) in the kitchen can lead to frankly dangerous food concoctions. The audience for this blog is on the whole sufficiently sophisticated that such "instructions" may be superfluous, but I would hope that there are some readers (who perhaps didn't comment) who may have some second thoughts about their culinary maneuvers as a result of seeing this video.

@Feh - I probably did confuse the terminology re mac and cheese, because what she was making is what I would have termed "pasta salad." I've modified the post accordingly. Tx.

Walter, your suggestion is directly discussed in the book as one possible explanation for the observations.

Perhaps in that era of long skirts some men used highly polished shoes for upskirt views, and this ad was designed to appeal to them.

The reason people and vehicles seem to move more quickly in these old films is because that's actually how things moved at that time. Because of frictional resistance the rotation of the earth is slowing down, and there is even evidence that time itself is slowing down. These old films provide an invaluable resource to show what life and movement was like in olden days...

An opinion even more strident than the one at WaPo is in Salon today: http://www.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/feature/2009/09/28/polanski_arrest/

Cluck - It was in fact 1984. Corrected. Thanx.

J Bergstrom - You're quite correct. The graph shows % teenagers, not absolute age, so the winter age is younger. Post revised. Thanks.

ByrdBrain - Lovecraft has been a popular author for decades, so quite a few collections of his works have been printed. Wikipedia offers this bibliography -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_works_by_H._P._Lovecraft#Reprintings_and_collections

It would probably be easiest just to browse your local library or bookstore rather than try to find a specific one.

I hope everyone understands that the answer is at the link (or is visible by mousing over the photo credit).

randomperson, you're quite correct. Fixed. Tx.

And in the photo, he's the one in the center with the long hair, wearing the dress...

The person who built the shelves left a message at Gizmodo with a link to his blog -

http://www.alcoholandnightswimming.com/

- where there are tips on how to build the shelves. They appear not to be commercially available.

I'm a little suspicious of the backstory, because trees generally don't grow "up" in the sense implied here. A carving on a tree does not travel "up" the trunk as the tree gets older.

Maybe I'm just too cynical...