Google’s web search engine is well known for altering its logo to fit the theme of the day. Usually, however, when a user ‘mouses’ over the image, you can see a tag that explains what that theme is. Not so on September 5th, when the logo featured a cartoonish UFO kidnapping one of the ‘Os’.
The mystery sent net geeks into a tizzy, but the following blog at the Telegraph (yep, the same paper that published the infamous ‘Blackjack’ series of graphics) concludes that the logo marked the 20th anniversary of the debut for a Japanese video game based on an insider Geek phrase, “All your base are belong to us”:
Google offered a clue on its Twitter page, adding the message “1.12.12 25.15.21.18 15 1.18.5 2.5.12.15.14.7 20.15 21.19″. Swap those numbers for the corresponding letters of the alphabet and you get “All your O are belong to us”.
Since the publication of the above linked blog entry, Wikipedia has listed the game’s debut date as September 5, 1989. Perhaps this is simply because an editor wanted to complete the entry, or perhaps it’s more.
Take a look at today’s Google image:
Though it’s no secret that today is indeed 09/09/09, could it be today’s graphic is somehow linked to the previous, mystery UFO graphic? Who knows? If nothing happens today, then we can all laugh. We’ve been watching the 4400 series on DVD for the past week, and the logo that appears before each episode looks like this:
Notice that the word ‘The’ is directly over the first zero (which also looks like an ‘o’). The opening credits of The 4400 feature animation that makes it appear that some of the letters in each name are being abducted. Ok, bear with me here. Obama is the 44th president. He is also the ‘O’. Is there a meme here? Just wondering.
Call me crazy, but this is how my mind works. Scary, huh?
