Yak Shaving

I spent a good part of Wednesday afternoon at work trying to solve a technical problem several levels removed from the problem I really wanted to solve. Apparently this is known as yak shaving.

Wiktionary has a formal definition here.

The term seems to derive from an episode of Ren and Stimpy.

I want to write a show that spawns terms that enter everyday usage. Whichever Simpsons writer first came up with "D'oh!" is now an integral part of English-speaking culture. Ditto for Graham Linehan and Arthur Mathews for coining "feck", which I'm told didn't exist as a swear word pre-Father Ted.

Today a sitcom, tomorrow the world. Who could ask for more power than that?