Man, I would have worn something different to work today if someone had bothered to tell me it was freaking WORLD GOTH DAY. Luckily there is still time to stop home for something black/antique/lacy, pancake makeup, and a blood red lip before bellying up at Lovecraft, my very favorite goth bar, and possibly the only goth bar, in the whoooooole city, where according to their schedule, the night's festivities will be celebrated with a set from DJ iPod—what... dude, that's hella not... oh, whatever. Meanwhile, while you watch the clock in anticipation, the results of the highly scientific and legally binding World Goth Day Awards 2012 Results are in for you to brush up on beforehand:

Best 80's goth band: The Sisters Of Mercy
Best 90's goth band: Fields of the Nephilim
Best 2000's goth band: Fields of the Nephilim
Best band of the last two years: The Last Cry
Best single of the last 12 months: 'To Dream Next To You' - The Last Cry
Best album of the last 12 months: 'Ceromonies' - Fields of the Nephilim
Best Author: Neil Gaiman
Best Model: Emma Dark Morte
Best Magazine: Gothic Beauty Magazine
Best Goth/EBM/Dark Alternative Radio Show/Station: Nightbreed Radio
Best Goth/EBM/Dark Alternative Club Venue or Night: Slimelight (UK)

• Goths up Trees

Portland Clowns is hiring!

Good work, Portland redditors, on finding the creepiest thing on the whole internet. Seriously—click through to read the job description. Affiliated site terminatorspoof.com is also hiring:

More information about this project: I really like the “terminator” movies, (“terminator 3” being my favorite movie of all time because its nonstop action, it has funny stuff in it, and it even has a love story) and I also really liked the “terminator the Sarah Conner chronicles” show so my intent isn’t to put down terminator but to instead playfully make fun of it because there is some stuff in it that’s kind of silly, for example they say you have to time travel naked because only living stuff will go, when what about hair and fingernails and toe nails they aren’t living and what about the liquid terminator in terminator 2 and the partially liquid terminator in terminator 3, they aren’t covered with living tissue but still go time travel naked. Also the idea of time travel I think is kind of silly because I think it’s impossible to travel through time and as proof of this we don’t have people claiming to be from the future showing up.

I can't tell if this is very sophisticated viral marketing, or a legitimate example of the internet being totally batshit crazy. I'm leaning toward the latter.

A forceful reminder via the Forever 21 Photoshop task force to, in addition to your skin, body hair, thighs, hips, boobs, cellulite, under eye circles, neck waddle, stomach pouch, and sundry genetic inferiority, not to forget to also hate your kneecaps about yourself. Your kneecaps SUCK.

• Forever 21

GQ has a great article this month with the heartbreaking title "18 Tigers, 17 Lions, 8 Bears, 3 Cougars, 2 Wolves, 1 Baboon, 1 Macaque, and 1 Man Dead in Ohio," about the Ohio man who released his private menagerie of exotic animals from their cages and then killed himself.

The piece breaks down the timeline of that day, including painful interviews with some of the officers involved in putting the animals down:

Kanavel's tactic was to shoot for the head a couple of times, and then move on to the body and keep putting rounds into it. "I was sick, shooting these animals, because they didn't ask to be there," he says. "And, you know, I'm a cat person."

It goes on to investigate our murky attitudes toward animal ownership and care, as well as how, exactly, a crazy, gun-loving Vietnam vet was allowed to own 18 tigers:

For the majority of Americans who know little about the world of exotic animals, the astonishing events in Zanesville begged some obvious questions. How could a private citizen have amassed a collection of so many unusual and potentially dangerous animals in the first place? Surely he must have broken every law that prevents your next-door neighbor from secretly housing an ambush of tigers?

The answer to that first question: It's surprisingly easy. The answer to the second question is: What laws?

It's a sad, fascinating article that also contains the surprising phrase: "Jack Hanna was supplying Charlie Sheen's tiger blood." The whole thing is worth a read.

So according to Us magazine, unrepentant girlfriend beater Chris Brown has a brand new pickup line that he used at the Grammies!

Chris Brown — who pleaded guilty in 2009 for felony assault for hitting then-girlfriend Rihanna — confidently approached an attractive brunette Feb. 10 at the Lasio Professional Hair Care suite Grammy gift lounge and asked her, "Can I get your number? I promise I won't beat you!" the woman tells Us Weekly.

Ahhhhh. I'm so glad he's finally able to come to terms with being a complete and utter dick. Somebody give this man an award!

According to HuffPo, some kind of weird, unearthly super loud howling has been heard in different remote places around Canada, and it's scaring the poop into people's pants!

Two bizarre — yet oddly similar — videos of howling have been recorded in separate parts of Canada, capturing the imagination of YouTube viewers and skeptics alike.

The first video, posted on Jan. 13, reportedly recorded strange sounds in a forest in Conklin, Alta., a remote community northeast of Edmonton. The unidentified noise — which sounds like it came straight from the soundtrack of a horror movie — has racked up more than 500,000 views and dozens of comments, many of which question its authenticity.

Another video surfaced just a few days later on Jan. 15, with similar sounds apparently recorded in The Pas, Manitoba, more than 1,000 kilometres away.

Here's the January 13 one. (It might be a good idea to turn off the lights in your office, and hold a co-workers hand while watching this.)