When the Going Gets Tough, LOL

Bad news and bad weather made Friday the perfect day to escape into the phenomenon known as LOLcats, and also into the wonderful world of WikiHow.

The business of putting silly captions on pictures of cats or other creatures has boomed, if the increasingly dense pages of "I Can Has Cheeseburger?" are any example. A whole industry has built up around LOLcats and the site is crammed with ads, archives, comments and guides to LOLspeak. But it's still good for a laugh when you need one.

WikiHow is a compendium of how-to articles on seemingly every topic under the sun. The one that intrigued me as the weather report got worse Thursday was "How to Make a Ribbon Bookmark." I had started reading three books , so extra bookmarks seemed quite necessary. I am always intrigued by anything that could be considered fiber art, creating something decorative or useful out of string, yarn, ribbon or fabric.

Having some thin ribbon on hand, I followed the step-by-step directions and soon had a new bookmark. It was such a satisfying escapist project that I decided to make another.

Click here for the WikiHow home page. Recent topics include "How Not to Be Annoying" and "How to Survive a Volcanic Eruption."

--Bernice Paglia