You know, I’m certainly of an age that Google can still amaze me pretty easily. No loads of encyclopedias and stacks of reference books to find that one obscure fact, no card catalogue to find those stacks of books, no microfiche/film machines to strain your eyesight—and your patience. Information at your fingertips 24/7, even information you would never have thought to search for. Really, when I say it amazes me, I mean that fairly literally, even if I do take it for granted now and again.
But you know what’s almost as cool as having a world of facts and figures at your beck and call? Google Doodles. I’ll admit it: sometimes I pull up the home page even when I don’t need to search anything, just to see if there’s something whimsical to amuse me for a couple of minutes.
Today, in honor of what would have been Maurice Sendak’s 85th birthday, we take a stroll through some colorful worlds, with Max leading the way.
Birthdays, holidays, anniversaries, they’re all fair game for some doodle fun. And not just your normal, run-of-the mill celebratory days; you never really know what kind of doodle you might find. But, of course, all you have to do is click through the art to find more information on the day’s topic. Fun and educational; does it get any better than that?
Well, it could be better than that, if one of your very own ideas showed up on the Google home page! If you’ve got something you think is doodle worthy, you can drop them a line at proposals@google.com. I wish I had some grand idea, but for right now, I’ve got nothing.
If you’ve got a few minutes (or more), and want to browse through some of the whimsy, you can find the museum of doodles here. Oh, and they’ve even got a Zazzle shop, just in case you want to take that whimsy from the computer screen and have it with you always. I bet no one ever wanted a tee shirt or mug with a card catalogue on it.
