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Sunday, November 1, 2009

Google Me A Logo


As I'm writing this on Halloween night, it's almost impossible for me to keep my butt in this chair for more than five minutes without the doorbell ringing and my having to go and appease the desires of the throngs of costumed beggars which have appeared at the front door of the compound. (I lower the drawbridge for the moat on the occasions when tradition dictates that I allow the part of the public which consists of the small to traipse onto the grounds of "Chez Tiré à Vue". That translates to "Shot on Sight". Catchy, no?) They all seem quite surprised when I ladle piping hot creamed corn directly into their bag. It's odd.

The point here is that it's hard to keep a consistent thought in my head due to the ruckus, so I headed over to The Google to see what their Halloween logo consisted of. Very clever this year, it was. Behold! Now, when you would hover your mouse over said logo, it said "Click or treat". So I did. Click, that is. And the logo changed, as if by magic. And since you can't run your mouse over it now and have the same effect, I shall recreate the results for you. Behold!

I repeated that scenario two more times and two more times the logo changed. Behold!

And behold again!
It's cute and all, but they really need to be trick or treating in a different neighborhood. Look at all of those unwrapped candies in there! The horror! And who can manage to eat half of a Life Saver like that? Why not just finish off that roll of Smarties? Do they make those lollipops with the loop for the handle anymore? Where do I get some of those? I would like that.

That all got me thinking about some of the Google Halloween logos from the days of yore. If you're not familiar with yore, it's right around the time of yesteryear. In 2008, horror film guy Wes Craven designed the Google Halloween logo and it was just swell. Behold!

I was also a big fan of 2007's Halloween logo. It was sort of that Victorian-era-meets-The-Haunted-Castle ride at Disneyland. Behold!

But as I started looking over the past Google Halloween logos, I realized that there were about a gazillion different Google logos for about a gazillion different 'occasions' all across the land and the world. Who knew? I'm always amazed at what the self-righteous (and while they have perfected possibly the greatest invention/tool ever, that of accurate Internet search, and they have exactly the amount of money they deserve for such a feat, they're a little full of themselves at times) over there at The Google consider "logo-worthy". I mean, come on! From what I can tell, the very first custom Google logo to commemorate a holiday or event was that of the Burning Man Festival in 1998. What does that tell you? (I don't really know what it tells you, but it tells you something, I know that!)

Of course, before I continue with those that have been deemed "logo-worthy", I'm in no way implying that they're not "logo-worthy". Actually, you know what? Maybe I am implying that. You don't know. Even if I was implying non-logo-worthiness would I tell you if you called me on it? Damn straight I would. Forget what I just said. Take this however you want.


There's National Aboriginal Week in July in Australia. Really? A whole week for that? How does that work? According to the logo, there seems to be dancing with shields, presumably to protect one from that whirlwind of rocks behind them. Behold!


In Poland, there's Fat Thursday. I'm not sure if that's anything like Fat Tuesday in New Orleans here, but if you've looked around lately, it seems as though every day is Fat Day. People are huge lately. Behold! Good Lord, are those jelly donuts there? I have got to learn more about Poland if they celebrate the equivalent of Jelly Donut Day! But I digress. In Germany, something called Seven Sleepers Day gets a logo. I don't know what that is, but it sounds fabulous. Any day which promotes sleeping is just a fantastic idea all the way around. How can you go wrong?
I was a big Tetris fan, but does it deserve a logo for the 25th anniversary of the thing? If Tetris gets one, Pac-Man better get one, as should Atari (and/or its founder, Nolan Bushnell), Space Invaders and Pong.
Germany also gets a logo for Girls Day. We don't have a "Girls Day" in the US because it would be considered sexist. It would also probably be considered racist, even though race has nothing to do with it. One goes hand in hand with the other around here (which is why I cannot wait for this night to be over so the drawbridge can go back UP where it belongs and my walled off compound and go back to being walled off).

The 200th anniversary of the birth of Nikolai Gogol, the father of Russian realism, gets a logo. I guess I'm OK with that in theory, but I read about Mr. Gogol and I am confuddled by what the nose has to do with anything. It's not like he founded smelling. His realism didn't seem to focus on the human nose. So what's with the nose, Google Boys?

The Large Hadron Collider got a logo. I guess over there at Google they figured that they might as well get in one last custom logo in just in case that collider thing ended up killing everyone.


And even Alexander Popov got a logo. If you're asking "Who?" you're not alone. Alexander Popov is the guy who the folks over yonder in Russia consider to be the inventor of the radio. Now, according to Russia Today, "Americans are convinced it was Nikola Tesla who invented radio. Italians claim it was Marconi, but for Russians it was Aleksandr Popov who gave radio to the people." I haven't found a logo for Marconi or Tesla, but then again, Google co-founder Sergey Brin was born in Moscow. Enough said.
Whew! Doorbell stopped ringing. Time to put away the ladle, raise the drawbridge, release the alligators and sit back, relax and enjoy the confines of the walled off compound for another year. I hope you had a Happy Halloween.

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