This is a 3-column layout too. That allows you to get more things up near the top of the page, so people don't need to scroll down-down-down quite so much.

It has a texture background, so it doesn't look quite so flat, or one-dimensional, but that can be changed very quickly to any kind of background you like. Having it on the just the periphery gives a touch of atmosphere without interferring with the text on the page.