"Do a barrel roll" ain't Google first barrel roll. That honor goes to the deeper-than-you'd-think flight simulator buried inside of Google Earth. It used to be a hidden feature accessed by pressing Crtl + Alt + A, but newer versions let you access it from the Tools menu.
Look in the lower-right corner at Google Maps' pegman. Or should we say PENGUINMAN? In a remote stretch of Antarctic land, pegman does his best "Danny Devito in Batman" impression and goes native. Check it out for yourself.
Google's calculator function has dimensions for all kinds of joke units, including donkeypower, Potrzebie, "number of horns on a unicorn," and how often "once in a blue moon" occurs. My favorite, of course, is "beard second," which Wikipedia says is "a unit of length inspired by the light-year, but used for extremely short distances such as those in nuclear physics." How long is 1 beard second? You gotta Google it to find out.
We love minigames, and we love YouTube, so YouTube's "Snake" minigame makes us swoon. Just play/pause a video, then immediately press the up and left arrows on your keyboard. Presto! Now don't hit a wall or run the snake into itself. This doesn't work on embedded videos, only on YouTube itself.
Simple and funny: searching for "Askew" turns the screen askew. You get the same result searching for "Tilt."
Chrome may be Google's baby, but you can still find a Firefox logo doing a crop circle impression in Google Earth by flying to 45° 7'25.87"N 123° 6'48.97"W
Geeky fun: searching for "Ascii art" transforms the Google logo into ascii.
Even Picasa gets in on the Easter egg fun: press Crtl + Shift + Y and you'll see a bear. Do it over and over again and you'll see a veritable army of bears!
More Google calculator oddities: try searching for "The answer to life, the universe and everything" or "The loneliest number." We love Douglas Adams references!
It doesn't happen every time, but a user named Michael Smith on Technocrat.net pointed us towards the fact that trying to get directions from one continent to another sometimes results in odd Google Maps directions. Try to get directions from Clarence St, Brunswick East VIC 3057, Australia to W 73rd St, New York, New York, New York 10023, United States and you'll be told to kayak across two different oceans!
Oh, those cheeky Googlers: the caption speaks for itself.
Finding the Firefox logo in Google Earth is cool, but finding the KFC colonel's logo is finger-lickin' awesome. Fly to these coordinates: 37°38'46.50"N 115°45'2.98"W
You may know that you can change Google's default language to nifty things like Sesame Street's Swedish chef. But did you know that searching for "xx-pirate", "xx-klingon", "xx-bork," "xx-piglatin" and "600673" brings up the landing pages for those themes?
Who says aliens aren't real? Boot up Google Earth and bring up the "Mars" planetary feature, then fly to "Meliza." You'll be taken to a chat conversation with a real live Martian whose name and responses are curiously similar to Eliza's, a famous chat bot.
You know porn -- um, "Incognito" -- mode in Chrome? Sure you do. But have you ever actually read its warning?
Take a trip over to the Googleplex headquarters in Mountain View to catch a glimpse of the Street View team.
You might have tuned out the Google Ads around your Gmail account by now, but if you check out the ad at the top of your "Spam" inbox, you might just find yourself delighted by a delicious Spam recipe.
That wacky pegman! He transmogrifies into a Lego version of pegman if you visit Lego Land in Carlsbad, California. Make a point of checking him out on holidays, too.
If you try sending a text message of more than 320 characters in Google Voice, the word count changes to "Really?" And we happen to agree with it. Image credit: techworld.com
Less an Easter egg than a super-cool Google Bomb (Google the term if you need to), try an "I'm feeling lucky" search for "Find Chuck Norris". Even Google fears the beard!
If you laughed at this without needing to Google it first, you're officially a geek and have our respect.
Now this is nifty! Head into a Google Docs spreadsheet, then click on an empty cell and press Shift + F12. Who knew slaying a dragon could be so easy.
