That said, maybe this one was pushing it. I saw that this morning and thought, "Oh, here we go..."
Personalizations are cute so long as you have a personal relationship with who is doing it. If Google was a three man team who interacted with their userbase on a regular basis then these acts of personalization would mean more. But a 26,000 plus employee company having faceless developer #014345 implement feature #21542154, is much harder to pull off as being personal or cute. Especially considering how impersonal Google is towards customer service. It can come off like a socially awkward geek trying to make conversation...
Here let's remind you about your great father(or possibly your dead, abusive or absent father) to show how human & personal we are as a company, but if you actually have a problem with one of our products or services good luck actually getting a personal touch then.