Why is Google doodling about ice cream sundaes?

I had barely woken this morning when I discovered that someone had spilled last night's dessert all over my MacBook.

Looking a little more closely (it helped to open the eyes a little after a night on the petite sirah), I discovered that it was the Google logo that had been adorned with an ice cream sundae.

Rolling over in my bed--and then rolling over the logo--I discovered that Google was celebrating the 119th anniversary of the first documented ice cream sundae.

Somehow, this didn't seem the most obvious thing to be celebrating, though Google seems to believe that the ice cream sundae was invented first by someone in Ithaca, N.Y.

That someone is alleged to have been a pharmacist.

However, this all seems so randomly obscure that some, naturally, have attempted to claim an insider's knowledge of this Google ruse.

Search Engine Watch, for example, is sniffing that "Sunday's sundae is Google's way of whetting the world's appetite for the latest Android update, nicknamed Ice Cream."

Yes, of course. The world can barely contain its breakfast, given its fevered feelings over the latest Android update.

But might this doodle have other intentions?

Might it, for example, be the work of worried Google staffers, encouraging new CEO Larry Page to eat a little more as he attempts to drive Google beyond its current, slightly static state?

Might it also be worried Google staffers expressing their need for a little cherry atop their lives, as the drive to become a new Google is taking its toll on their fun quotient?

My own view is that this is a symbolic recruiting tool. Google is trying to tell engineers out there that it is tired of its vanilla image. What is the company now looking for? Engineers with a little more sauce. Oh, and more nuts.