This American Valentine's Day.

That Day Yesterday's International doodle on Google's homepage was this cute if otherwise entirely pointless chocolate box interactive thingy but in US visitors were treated to a special episode or Act of This American Life in which Ira introduced clips of people talking about falling in love hidden behind love hearts. Here's Google's take and at TAL's website Ira explains why they did it:

"I’ve been a fan of Google Doodles for a while (though I only recently learned they had a name and that name is Google Doodles). I liked that they seemed able to do anything on their homepage — a crossword puzzle, a Dr. Who video game, a tribute to Saul Bass, a Les Paul guitar or a fully functioning Moog Synthesizer (with its own four-track tape recorder). It’s interesting that in this big global company, with millions or maybe it’s billions of dollars in computer servers everywhere, and all this tech and engineering, they have people doing something for their biggest product – their search engine – that’s so... handmade. And idiosyncratic. This Doodle is their first foray into documentary storytelling and I hope they do more stuff like it. I hope they reach out to Wes Anderson and Laurie Anderson and Anderson Cooper and artists whose names are not Anderson as future collaborators."

Ira mentioned the Doctor Who game. Good god, imagine what an episode of This American Life about Doctor Who would be like: "Act III: I have a fixation with the Monoids..." that sort of thing.