In honor of Valentine’s Day, we’ve teamed up with one of our favorite design companies, Blik, to host two love-inspired giveaways (one today and one tomorrow). If you’re not familiar with our inventive friends at Blik (they were the first in the world to create removable wall graphics!), kindly check them out on Facebook, follow them on Twitter, and see their designs. They are truly both rad, fab, and good-natured FOKKers.

Today’s contest: What’s your worst breakup story? Contest is now closed.

Love hurts. We know.

The pangs of a broken heart can make you eat your feelings in stale snack cakes, curse e. e. cummings, and have “Always Be My Baby” by Mariah Carey on repeat.

But let your friends at Blik and Knock Knock be your shoulder to cry on (sans the physical shoulder). Share your worst breakup tale with us and you could win a heart-mending bundle that includes:

• Blik’s Heart Breakout Wall Decal
• Breakups and Rejections for All Occasions
• Things You Do That Really Piss Me Off Pad
• Rate-a-Date Pad
• Thanks for Being Stamp

Behold the prize. Tell us your story and you could receive all of this stuff in return.

To enter:

• In this post’s comment section below, tell us your worst, heartrending breakup story. (U.S. and Canada peeps only.)
• All comments must be posted by 11:59 p.m. PST today.

. . . And just so you know, “You’re better off.” (p. 68) (Thanks, Pep Talks and Picker-Uppers!)

Congratulations to our winner, Dawn Taylor!

Having to live with your ex-fiancé for a whole year after he broke up with you via text? Rough roads. We hope your prize bundle helps!

And a hearty thank you to everyone who participated! Picking a winner was tough and it seems all of your exes deserve Hey Asshole sheets!

Tear off a sheet of our Rate That Beer Pad for you and your friends.

It’s been four years since “one of the most memorable upsets in Super Bowl history,” but alas, it’s t-minus six days until the “Pats” and the “G Men” will face off again.

Even if you don’t care two cents about the teams playing (or football in general), the game-day tradition has evolved into being more about stuffing your face with Paula Deen-ified noshes, slamming down pint glass after pint glass of filled-to-the brim ale, and ranking your favorite over-the-top commercial with friends and acquaintances than paying attention to the actual number of touchdowns.

But this time around, we have a few ideas for you to try out during this Sunday of super, making it that much more entertaining for you and the buddies, or at the very least, preventing it from becoming a “memorable upset.”

1. Tear off a sheet of our Rate That Beer Pad for you and your friends to use as mock placemats. You probably won’t have time to rank your beers, but it is blue (a color shared by both the New England and New York), so technically it’s interchangeable for each team.

Play a Madonna halftime drinking game.

2. Play a half-time drinking game while Madonna performs:

• One sip every time the “Queen of Pop” switches up songs.
• One sip for every time that song is from Like a Virgin or Like a Prayer.
• Two sips if it’s from her new album, MDNA.
• One sip for every hip thrust.
• Two sips every time she speaks and exercises that faux-British accent.
• One shot if pyrotechnics are involved.
• One sip if they pan on a person in the crowd with a confused face.
• One shot if a surprise guest comes on stage, two shots if it’s a new rapper, and three shots if it turns out to be Miley Cyrus.

3. Keep a WTF Chart on the wall to rank each commercial from 1 to 5 (i.e., 1= “weak”; 2= “slightly funny”; 3= “last-minute conversation-filler”; 4= “hilarious,” 5= “drink came out of my nose”). Take some stabs as to which will be viral and end up on BuzzFeed’s inevitable “Top 5 Commercials That Made You Say WTF?” list.

A much cuter bowl game.

4. Keep your Cook This Pad out in the open and suggest that guests swap recipes with each other (if it’s a pot luck) depending on their favorite eats, or tell them that you would be happy to write down your own recipe for them (unless you’re not).

5. Take a break from the commotion and watch the real action going on at Puppy Bowl VIII. There are definitely more cuties in this game for sure.

We threw this last-minute new products blog contest to pick your brain on what your fave spring products are. It was hard to choose just two winners, since each and every comment made us crack a huge grin. But since that’s what we initially wrote, we had to stick to the rules.

I myself did notice that a huge trend was writing about the Indelicate Doily Coasters, which made me wonder if you all just looked at the picture above and immediately typed a blurb on that. But I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt because those are secretly one of my favorites as well.

Congrats to the winners:

1. Lucky McGee, Office Speak Pencil Case

Your making-envelopes-out-of-magazines idea made us “ooh” and “aah.” And it would be our pleasure to third-party assist you in your crafty ways. Also, send us that picture of Electric Avenue! It would be so fun to see and share.

2. Janine Kamouh, One Word a Day Journal

Thank you for you anecdote. It was as if we were right there with your family, sitting at the dinner table, listening to you gab on and on. It won’t offend us if you talk about your win for more than two hours each day, but our apologies to your family and friends in advance.

Be on the lookout for more upcoming contests, FOKKers! (Hint, hint: we have a special one coming up next week, so be on the lookout!)

One of our Knock One Back Indelicate Doily Coasters.

The fruits of our labor are finally here, friends! You’ve peeked at a few of our products already, including our Big Word Flashcards, It’s A Dog’s Life JournaI: Our First Year Together, and A Year of Fortunes (Without the Cookies). But I’d virtually march on over here and see the rest of the spring beauties for yourself—if you haven’t already.

We are so excited to introduce new lines, including our Indelicate Doily Coasters and Office Speak gear (dibs on the Rotating Stamp), and we’re so happy to refresh favorites, like our Academic Planners, Task Clips, and Greeting Cards.

You may also notice that our Inner-Truth clan has new kin, including our Inner-Truth Magnets and our Mini Inner-Truth Journals. (There are so many internal conversations to be had.)

One of our newest pads: Culture Vulture.

Speaking of journals, have you seen our One Word a Day Journal or The Self-Help Smorgasbord activity book? Leisure and downtime are totally calling your name. Give in with these helpers.

And curb the little ones’ fussy times with our My Food Passport and My Fitness Passport. (We’re sure it will reduce the amount of groans—from both the kids and yourself—which all parties can appreciate.)

We could go on and on about our new products (we haven’t even touched on our new Pads, Playtime Pads, Nifty Notes, and Sticky Notes), but we’re more thrilled to hear what your favorite is so far.

So, we thought we’d shake things up with a quick, one-day only blog contest! Two winners will receive their favorite new product, courtesy of our anticipation and appreciation.

To enter: Tell us what your favorite new spring product is and why in a blog comment below by 7:00 p.m. PST today. And posts just on our Facebook wall won’t count. (I know, we sound like hard-asses.)

Happy commenting!

For our weekly “In It for the Money” feature, we’ll be introducing you to the kick-ass Knock Knockers who make everything go, from creative to sales to logistics to . . . everything! Note—everybody answers the first five questions. After that, they have about fifteen wild-card questions from which to choose.

My office, messier than I would like.

1. Name and title? Jen Bilik, CEO. Also, Jen Bilik CEO and founder. Also, Jen Bilik, head honcho.

2. Originally from? Berkeley, California. I was born in Chicago while my dad was in graduate school but we returned to Berkeley, where my parents had attended university, by the time I was ten months old. I like to say I was “_____ and raised in Berkeley.”

3. What the hell do you do all day? Really good question. I don’t really have a specific job or set of duties. Okay, I kind of do, but it’s all over the place. I’m involved in everything at Knock Knock concerning strategy and vision, which boils down to meetings and special projects. So I’m either in meetings or hammering out outlines, etc., for the special projects. I tend to lead or spearhead all our new initiatives. I give a lot of opinions. Sometimes I still write stuff. Also, I pretty much oversee all marketing, because we still don’t have a senior person dedicated to that area.

4. Favorite thing about working at Knock Knock? The feeling of being at a creative think-tank, which was one of my goals starting out—to work with smart, driven, constant-improvement-oriented people who were intellectually curious and would engage in robust debate and from whom I could learn. Also, the opportunity to be myself in all my irreverent and crass splendor.

5. Favorite hobbies outside work? I love to watch TV. I really do love it a lot. I like high-quality dramas and low-quality reality shows. I also read a lot—with books, mostly fiction, because I read in bed for about an hour and a half before falling asleep every night, and nonfiction stimulates me too much (I just want to take notes and think about how to use the information). I’m an avid New York Times and People magazine consumer and overall reader of essays and long articles. I also sew (little embroideries, mostly), knit, garden, and take the dogs on walks. I guess seeing friends isn’t really a hobby. I do that too sometimes.

6. Did your professional life exist before Knock Knock? Surprisingly little! I’ve really had one real job outside Knock Knock, at Rizzoli International Publications, where I started as an editorial assistant and left as an editor, all inside three years. I’ve had a ton of part-time and summer jobs, and after Rizzoli I was a freelance editor for six years before starting Knock Knock. So it’s no surprise that I’m not really housebroken.

Me in my office, messier than I would like.

7. Favorite Knock Knock product? Over time, it may be some of the ones that are no longer with us, because I feel nostalgic for them, and because we put time and effort and care and idiosyncracy into them that we can’t quite do in the same way anymore. The Multiple-Choice Correspondence Notebook. The How to Find True Love poster. The Wheels o’ Wisdom. I like the really smart ones, the ones that contain intellectual Easter eggs for those who care to find them. Current products? Probably the books—The Complete Manual of Things that Might Kill You, The Convert’s Bible, the Lines for All Occasions series. Of the newly released Spring 2012 products, I’m partial to the Kids’ Passports—one for foods to try, the other for physical activities. Big Words Flashcards are pretty great, and I had a strong hand in the journal It’s a Dog’s Life, and of course we all know how I feel about dogs. Just wait until you see a big surprise release we’re about to spring on you—that’s been my baby for the past nine months. And Fall 2012? I just hope you’re seated when that email blitz hits your inbox.

8. Pet peeves? I am the queen of pet peeves. And really, it only hurts me, and it doesn’t improve society any, because it appears that when I give drivers dirty looks they don’t learn from the experience and change their ways. A lot of driving pet peeves. Inconsideration in general. Think about other people, people! Leave your grocery cart in the middle of the lane? What the hell are you thinking? Inefficiency and stupidity bug me, too. Bad spelling. “Your” vs. ”you’re” confusions and the like. Really, the more revealing question would be to ask me what I don’t have pet peeves about.

9. Any hidden talents? I grew up playing classical piano with some degree of seriousness and dedication. In my house I have the Steinway upright that my also-piano-playing uncle bought for me when I was about twelve, replacing the off-tune-by-a-whole-step-with-nonworking-pedals piano that came with the house when my parents bought when I was one. I still love to play, but I only like to work on pieces until I can technically play them well enough to enjoy them. It’s not an area in which I exercise my perfectionism. I do attribute my facility with both left- and right-brain work to my piano training—apparently if you start playing piano, especially classical piano, early enough, you change your brain structurally. Also, it has helped me type really fast.

10. Favorite website? NYTimes.com. Sometimes I wonder whether I should diversify my sources, then I think, “Nah.” Mind you, I read nothing about politics or international affairs. It’s all culture and arts and business and style and health and science. I hate politics—just lots of reprehensible people arguing and showboating.

11. Food or drink you couldn’t live without? Red Vines. It used to be you couldn’t get them west of Nevada or Utah or some such. People compare them to Twizzlers, but Twizzlers are a petroleum by-product. Nasty nastorama. My parents used to send them to me in college care packages. I only like the semi-single-serving kind in the flat boxes. The ones in the big round plastic tub are too soft because the tub holds in too much moisture. The ones in the cellophane bags are thicker and don’t have the right texture. I still don’t know, however, whether the softer ones (there’s variation even in the one packaging type I like) are more or less fresh than the stiffer, chewier ones (which I prefer). At movies, I still like to drink Diet Coke through Red Vines straws and then eat the Red Vines after they’ve been semi-frozen in the drink’s ice, and the outside of the licorice has been slightly liquified.

12. What advice would you give your past self? You were thinner and prettier than you thought, and you could have made some much better choices in men.

Today’s National Handwriting Day (and John Hancock’s birthday), so grab a pen and favorite Knock Knock notepad to celebrate!

Appropriately enough, over the weekend, a few friends and I were at a restaurant and tried distracting ourselves from boredom and hunger by comparing our handwriting on a napkin. After a few minutes, we got into this debate on the importance of learning cursive. While a pal and I reminisced about the beauty of our favorite capitalized cursive letters, like the G, F, and Q (because they were oh-so-fun to doodle), our other friends called cursive “useless” and informed me on how states are now phasing it out of elementary curriculum to make room for typing lessons. Needless to say, I tried to hold back my tears.

What do you think? Should kids still learn the art of cursive? Tell us in a comment!

Last night I caught a showing of Beauty and the Beast in 3D. (And when I write, “Caught a showing,” I mean I willingly paid $16 to watch a snippet of my childhood flash before my eyes.)

Throughout the movie, my mind wandered to irrelevant places (not out of boredom—heavens, no—just out of habit). I started to think about what the personalities of our own products would be like if they too suffered under an enchanted spell. Then, I started to think about which of our products I’d give each character, since they’re an archetype of people I know in my own life. (I’d give Belle the Personal Library Kit, the Beast the Apology Nifty Note, Maurice the Idea Life Log, Lumiere the What to Eat Pad, Coggsworth the Passive-Aggressive Nifty Note, Mrs. Potts the I’m A Parent? Journal, and Chip the This or That? Activity Book, FYI.)* I’m telling you, this is really what was going on in my brain throughout the “Belle Reprise.”

However, I did notice two things as I watched the beloved Disney “classic” (it’s a classic to me, but if it’s not to you, our age gap is the enemy here):

1. This story is very much a kid-friendly lesson on the effects of Stockholm syndrome.
2. Gaston was much more of a douchebag than I remembered.

In fact, if Gaston were real, I would heartily hand our Hey Asshole Pad to him:

. . . Right? He’s the worst.

Anyways, have a “magical” weekend, FOKKers!

*I would have used photos with the actual Beauty and the Beast characters alongside our products to give you some visual representation. But dealing with the repercussion of possibly stepping on the toes of intellectual property rights (especially with all the online crackdowns going on) would take more from my life than the ten minutes it took me to write this post.

Yesterday, the Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect Intellectual Property Act web protests made us think about what life would like be if Facebook, Twitter, WordPress, and our beloved I Can Has Cheezburger? were in jeopardy’s chokehold. It made us glum. Thinking of all the websites, the amount of Social Media Citation Nifty Notes and Tweets & Status Updates for All Occasions that will be left untouched and unused. Sigh.

Then we saw this tweet from an article on the Huffington Post:

Now, that’s not a bad idea. It just made us appreciate our Paper Tweet Nifty Note that much more. Especially these Paper Tweets (we plucked a handful) that we found floating around the interwebs:

1.

Hey @Nrek, we do stuff too!

2.

We agree.

3.

We do like this.

4.

Noted.

5.

Well said. And in only twenty-one characters.

. . . Made our day.

For our weekly “In It for the Money” feature, we’ll be introducing you to the kick-ass Knock Knockers who make everything go, from creative to sales to logistics to . . . everything! Note—everybody answers the first five questions. After that, they have about fifteen wild-card questions from which to choose.

At a restaurant in the Forbidden City in Beijing. They are the eggmen. I am the walrus.

1. Name and title? Paul Rubin, operations associate.

2. Originally from? Los Angeles, California.

3. What the hell do you do all day? I help Gil, our director of operations, with day-to-day spreadsheet updating, spreadsheet reports, spreadsheet calculations, spreadsheet this, spreadsheet that, and spreadsheet the other.

4. Favorite thing about working at Knock Knock? The atmosphere is fun, the people are great, and I get do something new every day (i.e., this feature).

5. Favorite hobbies outside work? I’m kind of a sports nut. I’m not that guy who paints his face black and purple or mugs for the camera, but if you hear a screaming, incoherent, obscenity-laced tirade, then you might just be sitting near me. Oh, and watching sunsets with my girlfriend, Jenny.

6. Did your professional life exist before Knock Knock? Most recently I taught at a University in Nanjing, China. Yes, it was as awesome as it sounds. I also worked in the jewelry business—not as awesome as it sounds.

7. Favorite Knock Knock product? File Folders. As much as I enjoy the tedium of shuffling endlessly through papers and finding that the only one missing is the one you need, well, Knock Knock’s folders don’t prevent that from happening, but at least they put a smile on my face before I start.

8. Favorite website? Yahoo. Specifically, Yahoo! News. If you’ve been on there, you know what I’m talking about. If you haven’t, you need to check it out. It has just the right mix of recently-set world records, people making fools of themselves, shortcuts to getting rich, amazing hockey goals, and oh yeah, politics too.

This was also taken in Beijing. I am indeed snacking on a scorpion.

9. Food or drink you couldn’t live without? I’m not a very picky eater, so there isn’t really one thing I couldn’t live without. However, after being in China and trying crab brain, fish eyeball, pig snout, cow cartilage, scorpion, chicken heart, and fish stomach—I’ve come to the realization that I can do without those.

10. Pet peeves? Other people driving on the same road that I am. Choose a different route, please. Thank you.

11. If you were a superhero, what would your name and superpowers be? I have always been fascinated by the question, “If you could choose between having the power of invisibility or being able to fly, which would you choose?” If I were a superhero, I would choose both as my powers, so I can stop thinking about this quandary. You can call me “Invisible Flight Man.”

12. What advice would you give your past self? Start a website where people can post pictures, add friends, make comments, join groups, send messages, and Like things. Trust me on this one.