Groovy Doodles Make It Google Day Every Day

If you visited Google on Sunday–and odds are pretty good that you did–you may have noticed that its logo sports what seems to be a typo but is really a celebration of the company’s eleventh anniversary…

The special logo is known as a Google Doodle, and it’s a tradition almost exactly as old as Google itself (the first one appeared in September of 1998 to celebrate the Burning Man festival). And if Google Doodles were ever a scarce resource, that day is long past. Shall we recap September–so far?

On September 5th, 15th, and 20th, Google undertook an exercise in intentionally cryptic sequential narrative to celebrate the birthday of H.G. Wells…

On 9/09/09 at 9:09:09, it briefly ran a subtle commemorative Doodle…

It’s important to understand that if you only see the Google Doodles that appear on the company’s United States site, you’re missing out on at least half the fun. On September 18th, for instance, Google Chile set off fireworks to celebrate the 199th anniversary of Chile’s independence from Spain. The good people of Belize got the same logo three days later to mark the twenty-eighth anniversary of its independence from the United Kingdom…

On September 19th, German Google users got a celebration of Oktoberfest (remarkably, one that doesn’t show anyone hoisting a gigantic mug of beer)…

On September 23rd in Saudi Arabia, Google acknowledged the anniversary of that country’s 1932 unification…

Germany held national elections on Sunday, and Google made its mark…

And as I write this, it’s Monday in many countries, and Google is commemorating the traditional anniversary of the birth of Confucius (presumably there’s a good chance this Doodle will show up in the U.S. in a matter of hours)…

That’s ten Google Doodles in September–not counting any I don’t know about, nor any that the company will unveil between now and end of day on Wednesday. One out of three days in September, in other words, have been graced by a Google Doodle.

From all this we can conclude the following:

1) Google really likes coming up with Google Doodles;

2) It doesn’t mind doing ones that are quirky and mysterious–in fact, it revels in doing so;

3) It also doesn’t mind doing ones that don’t have universal appeal, such as its 2008 tribute to Walter Gropius;

4) It looks at Doodles not as a once-in-a-great-while treat to be doled out sparingly, but as goodies to be shared in abundance. They’re so plentiful that the company seems to have given up on keeping a record of all of them–making Google Doodles one of the few things on the Web which Google isn’t attempting to organize and make universally accessible and useful. (New independent sites such as Doodle Repository and Doodle Source are picking up the hard work.)

So it it unreasonable to wonder if we might see the day when every day would be Google Doodle day?

I don’t think so–in fact, once Doodles are no longer unexpected, seeing the plain ol’ Google logo is almost a disappointment. Here, I’ll come up with a roster of things to celebrate (or at least commemorate) in October, and I’ll even mock up some Doodles.

October 1st is World Vegetarian Day…