In the 'Jargon Watch' section of July '07 Wired they define 'Wilf' as:"an imperfect acronym for 'What was I looking for?' Wilfers spend up to a third of their online time drifting from news to shopping to porn sites."
And suddenly I prefer this verbage to 'surfing' the Internet (which implies 'wave action' - periodic bursts of propulsion through sites - decidedly not how I use the Internet), since it belies more of the bored mix of curiosity, ennui and what, maybe schadenfreude, that beckons me around the Internet like an opium dream when I don't have a point for being there.
So anway, I discovered this new terminology is perfect. Whilst wilfing today, I discovered this crazy line at the end of a pretty standard post at one of my favorite blogs (MGoBlog). It reads:
"Also: vicious, monkey-headed, cow-eating badgers who are "swift as deer" plague Iraq."
Naturally, I clicked the link. In the comments I saw a reference to another strange badger I'd encountered on the Internet. The Euroed-Out 'Badger Badger Badger' of few-year's-back forward fame.
Not that this had much to do with reality, but it reminded me that I had seen a badger cross US Highway 20 in Idaho on the drive from Boise to Sun Valley once and this got me curious about real badgers, so I went to the Wikipedia entry on badgers and learned something I did not know before (and thus proved the value of 'wilfing'):
"Aside from Polar Bears (Ursus maritimus) and Humans (Homo Sapiens), badgers are
thought to be the only animals which attack without provocation."
Well, I'll be goddamned. That's fascinating.
