[excuse-me]

Why .nz?

.co.uk I could understand, .com ,being the main site, would be an honour, even .de would be subtly ironic - but I can't see the connection with kiwis

Does each Google fiefdom get to do it's own toys without the express command of the chocolate factory?

[TazeTSchnitzel]

New Zealand is ahead of the US and UK. Google's Doodles are timed by local time and locality. So NZ gets them before the US does.

EDIT: Actually, it's quite interesting to look at Google's page about doodles. Most of the doodles will never be seen by you, since they are country-specific.

[excuse-me]

I see, although it does leave the question - if New Zealand is in the future why do they have Hobbits?

[pyre]

"All this has happened before, and all this will happen again."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_return

[excuse-me]

Yes I remember you saying that !

[dbaupp]

Other than the timing differences that TazeTSchnitzel describes, SquareWheel might be from NZ, so .nz is their default Google landing page.

[SquareWheel]

I am not, it was based on timezone.