SICKA THAN AVERAGE

Based in Venice, California, 10-year-old brand Knock Knock specializes in stationery, journals, books, paper goods, and office paraphernalia with quirky, humorous, irreverent sayings and illustrations that help you stay organized while infusing a sense of fun into otherwise mundane tasks. Their “Eat” note pad, for example, features pages divided into two columns — Dinner and Not Dinner — and then further organized by adding horizontal rows, each labeled with a day of the week, so that you can keep track of what you’re consuming or even make a thorough week-long meal plan.  Blocks of sticky notes, meanwhile, bear phrases like “Just Sayin,” “Mental Note,” “Duh,” “or “Stupid Question” along their top surface, so that the main sentiment behind your memo is conveyed from the very beginning.

Knock Knock recently unveiled some aptly clever new additions to its product array, among them  the Culture Vulture Pad ($6.50 at KnockKnockStuff.com) and the OMG Sticky Notes ($3.99 at KnockKnockStuff.com) pictured above.

Each cube of OMG Sticky Notes features 100 square sheets, each measuring 3″ by 3″ and featuring a solid kiwi green color along the periphery, the letters OMG stamped across the top in an oversize font to amplify the emphatic tone we associate with this digital age abbreviation. At the center of each note, you’ll find a paragraph’s worth of lines so that you can jot down the news, gossip, or observation you want to share. Directly above these lines, you’ll find four boxes you can check: FYI (“For Your Information”), LOL (“Laugh Out Loud”), TMI (“Too Much Information”), and IMHO (“In My Honest Opinion).

The uses for these OMG Sticky Notes are endless — you can post them on the fridge for your roommate to see, as a way of filling him/her in on the previous night’s exploits before heading to work; stick them to the edge of your co-worker’s computer to avoid the conspicuousness of water cooler bochinche sessions; or pass them to a friend in class to make those seemingly endless lectures a bit less tedious.

The Culture Vulture Pad, meanwhile, targets pop culture enthusiasts  like myself who are constantly consuming some form of media — whether it’s watching TV and films, listening to Spotify or tuning into Pandora, browsing through different websites and blogs, hunting for hilarious viral videos, devouring books and magazines, listening to podcasts, and catching indie bans in concert.

Each Culture Vulture pad contains 60 pages, each measuring 6″ x 9″ and featuring an olive green and cream color scheme. Every single page is divided into three columns labeled “Watch,” “Read,” or “Listen To.” These are then further  broken down via the three pre-labeled rows corresponding to each category. For the “Watch” column, these rows include the subcategories: “Movies/Television,” where you’d list all the shows you DVR religiously and the films you’ve been dying to see; “Viral Videos,” where you’d jot down any funny clips circulating the Web (for instance, the “Sh•t Girls Say” series); and “Cheap Entertainment,” where you’d list all those competition and reality TV shows (or awful made-for-TV films) you secretly enjoy. For the “Read” column, the subcategories include “Books/Authors,” where you’d likely list the prestigious titles on your summer reading list; “Websites,” where you could include your favorite online news outlets and blogs; and “Trashy Stuff,” where you could add anything from gossip rags to romance novels.  And, for the “Listen To” field, the subcategories are: “Artists/Bands,” so that you can remember to download the latest songs from buzzed-about artists; “Podcasts,” so you can tune in and hear music experts ruminate about the genre of your choice, the unheralded talent therein, and the Herculean forces dominating mainstream; and “Guilty Pleasures,” where you can secretly declare your love for, say, One Direction or Bruno Mars.

Near the bottom of the pad, you’ll find a “Notes” box with lines that span the length of each sheet, allowing you to jot down any pressing thoughts on the pop culture fare you listed or to add any adiditional reading, viewing, or listening materials.

Here’s the kicker: at the bottom of each sheet, you’ll find the words “To Reference” followed by three boxes labeled “Cheap Entertainment,” “In Casual Conversation,” or “To Prove Hipness.” Now, every subcategory features lines in which you can list items and, on the left-hand side of each line, you’ll also find a box you can check. This allows you to check off anything on the sheet— say, the latest episode of “The Killing”— and, in a matching pen color, check the corresponding box at the bottom of the pad (like, for example, “On Blog,” to signify you’ll be discussing the episode therein).

For fun, I filled out one of the sheets of my own Culture Vulture pad with some of the music I’ve been listening to, books I’ve been eager to read, and programs I’ve been following (check it out in the image third from top).

GIVEAWAY TIME!

Want to get in on the fun? Then enter our Knock Knock Culture Vulture Pad and OMG Sticky Notes Giveaway!

Here’s how to enter the giveaway:

1. Follow @SickaThanAvg and @knockknock on Twitter

2. Tweet the following: “I just entered to win @knockknock Culture Vulture Pad and OMG Stickies from @sickathanavg at  http://www.sickathanaverage.com/?p=8681“

3. Leave a comment below saying you’ve followed these steps. Make sure to leave an e-mail address, so you can be contacted should you win the giveaway.

 All contestant must reside within the United States to enter and must be 18 or older. The deadline to enter is May 18th at 11:59 EST. The winner will be announced by May 20th, both on Twitter and within the comments section below.

Good luck!