As we flipped through the Observer at our corner deli this morning, we had to wonder if said deli's front door was actually not a door at all, but a rip in the space-time continuum that had thrown us back to June 2007. Because what other explanation could there be for the pink paper's stories on gladiator sandals and the, um, up-and-coming neighborhood of Williamsburg?

Seriously—both the Times and the Wall Street Journal had stories mentioning gladiator sandals. The Observer declares them "The Hot Shoe of Summer!", but the Times, in June 2007, anointed as hip in "Another Summer of Love," while the Journal did so the following month in "Strapped."

And then there's the Williamsburg-as-college story, "Rah-Rah! Campus Life Sweet at Williamsburg College." At this point, making fun of Williamsburg's pale post-collegiate residents is like shooting tight-panted fish in a barrel—for anyone but the Observer, apparently. Surely, no one in Williamsburg actually "roll[s] out of bed in [their] sweatpants with 'JUICY' spelled across the butt"? Or, for that matter, still considers Vice "news you can use"?

The piece correctly notes that the McKibbin lofts are "less cool because of last month's front-page Times profile," which raises the question: Why is the Observer bothering with Style section leftovers?

After all, the Times is supposed to steal its outdated trend pieces from the Observer, not the other way around.