So this week's song is actually not a DJ Shnooms recommendation. We just got this emailed in from my friend Annie. She said everytime she hears this song she thinks of us. The songs about the dance, "the Crooked Booty." So everybody do the Crooked Booty. I don't' really like this song, but it's got a good message.

http://media.imeem.com/m/jTWhmFxwqg/aus=false/

Crooked Booty - Dungeon Family

At Crooked Monkey, customer service is paramount. The customer is always right, and we're always super excited when customers get phenomenal deals. We even like to share them with you so that you can replicate their deals--and get t-shirts for as cheap as possible.

As you are fully aware, People.com's Stylewatch, featured our funny t-shirts on their site and offered a 20% discount. That discount, on all our t-shirts, ends on Friday. All you have to do is use the promo code: "People"

So here's the amazing deal: A customer bought two discounted shirts, used the People promo code and got free shipping (which everyone gets when you buy two shirts). She bought our Gimme Some Sugar t-shirt (on sale at $16) and our More money more problems t-shirt (Priced at $19.99 in honor of the recession). She ended up spending $28 for two shirts, including shipping. That's $14/shirt. Good work! I think she got the best deal ever for two t-shirts.

Go look for your own deals on www.crookedmonkey.com. Don't forget to use the 20% promo code.

Crooked Monkey uses Google Analytics to see how people come to our website and see what specific pages on our site people like. We can also see how people get to our website--whether they found us by searching for funny t-shirts or from a blog that writes about us.

Oftentimes we get welcomed surprises--websites that are sending us traffic that we didn't even know wrote about us. This morning I checked analytics and found that people were coming from Seventeen.com. What a welcomed bonus.

They listed us under their "The cutest Tees" section, and we occupy the top 5 spots in it. Thanks guys.

Their list:
1)Facebook its my day job girls t-shirt
2)Give Peas a chance girls t-shirt
3)Sole Mates Girls t-shirt
4)Boys are so Last Season Girls T-shirt
5)Don't Frown Boogie Down Girls T-shirt

Its always exciting when people see Crooked Monkey t-shirts in the real world. We ship shirts all day, every day, so we know that the shirts are out there--but seeing someone wearing them, or hearing about it, is still so rewarding.

Over the weekend, a friend of mine from Los Angeles wrote on my wall:
"Someone in my office wore an "it's my duty to please your booty" shirt. I asked him to turn around and sure enough, I saw the monkey logo! :) happy Friday!"

I love it. Without seeing the monkey on the back, my friend knew it could only be a crooked monkey shirt (because our shirts are the coolest so when you see someone wearing a cool shirt you immediately think, Crooked Monkey) and then she did a little research and saw the monkey on the back, which corroborated her original hypothesis. What a successful science experiment.

Maybe this recession isn't so bad after all. We've got more time with our families, more time to pursue our hobbies and passions, and more time to give back to our communities. Sure, our bank accounts are smaller and we're about to lose our jobs--but that's all immaterial.

See, it's like the more money we come across, the more problems we see. Notorious, like a prophet, foreshadowed this recession. Check out our More money more problems t-shirt. It's only 19.99.

Ok we get it. We're supposed to save money now. Our national savings rate, before this recession, was a negative number--meaning that we spent more than we earned. Our consumerist society finally caught up to us and we are paying for it now.

But that doesn't mean we have to start living like the Amish. We can still pamper ourselves a little. And if shopping is your vice, then so be it. Some people spend their money on cars, others on mistresses. If you want to spend it on a nice bag or a cool t-shirt, don't feel ashamed. Buy it, and let everyone know that you're not afraid to spend a little money on yourself.

Our I love to shop t-shirt kills many birds with one stone--it's cheap (only 19.99, and I'm sure you can find some sort of discount code on the internet to make it even cheaper), it's funny, and it's true.

We like to group shirts in fours--mostly because our product page has four columns in each row--but also because four is a mystical number. Two plus Two is Four. Two times Two is Four. Its a very square and agreeable number. We made four girls recession t-shirts this time around.

Our Cheap is Chic Girls Recession T-shirt is the perfect shirt for girls who used to be cheap but had to hide it. Now you can say it loud, "I'm Cheap and i'm proud." It's kind of like buying a stock low and selling it high--Cheap used to be so taboo. Now its cool. Own the word, live the life, buy the shirt.

The stock market soared over 1,000 points last month. Unemployment numbers have stopped their downward spiral, and the overall sentiment is that this recession is almost over.

Time to start making fun of that lame ass recession. We came out with four recession t-shirts. This shirt, Broke is the new Black is one of my favorites. Playing on the "(Insert word here) is the New Black" phenomenon this shirt lets people know that it's hip to be broke. Long gone are the days of flaunting your money and proclaiming that you're frivolously spending cash.

Our Recession tees are only $19.99. Enjoy them.

Customers are always surprised when we say that we ship to every single country in the world. And I'm surprised by their being surprised.

Who are we to deprive our funny t-shirts to someone based on their geographical location. That's outright racism and we just won't stand for it.

It's not very difficult to ship t-shirts abroad--you just have to have a lot of faith in the postal service because when you ship abroad you are offered no guarantees and no tracking numbers.

On May 13th we shipped shirts to a customer in New Zealand. Two weeks ago the lady emailed us asking where her shirts were. We told her to hang tight because it had only been one week. Then she emailed us again last week. I gave her my personal address and told her it would arrive by the end of that week.

Then she emailed me yesterday asking for the shirts and I got nervous. 3 weeks? Come on now. I've been to Australia and it only takes 24 hours on a plane. So I told her to wait until Friday--and if her knight in shining armor (AKA the postal man with her favorite shirt) didn't arrive, we would mail out a replacement. For Free.

She emailed me the following today:

Cristina"

You can tell its an authentic email because she wrote "Heaps" and shes allowed to wear her shirt to work. Good on ya.

Having a car in the city is a huge liability. Parking tickets, speeding tickets, accidents, and scratches are just some of the reasons that you might want to think twice about owning a car in DC. In the first 12 months that I lived in DC, I got none of those. In the last 3 months I've hit for the cycle--multiple times. Oh how my fortunes have changed.

I'd like to explore DC's main source of income: parking tickets. Knowing their joy in handing out tickets, I have become very cautious when parking my car. I carefully read and reread all the posted signs--I walk 30 ft in each direction to make sure that I'm not missing any phantom signs.

The other day I parked my car, for less than 24 hours, in a legal spot and then got a ticket for a temporary sign that was put up after I had already parked. That cannot be legal. Last night I parked in a spot that had been legal for the last 12 months. But a couple of weeks ago someone added a homemade arrow to the "No parking sign" that originally only pointed to the right--now it also pointed to the left (if you click the picture above, you'll see what i'm talking about). It was a questionable spot, so I looked at the other two signs (pictured below) to see if they corroborated this new restriction.They did not--according to the other two signs my spot was still 100% legal. So I figured the added sticker to the other sign was vandalism--or a funny practical joke. It turns out it was neither. This morning I walked to my car and saw that familiar pink slip. Under the comments for the ticket it stated that the signs were "Clearly posted." Clearly posted? No one should have to write a dissertation--weighing one restriction against another--to figure out if a parking spot is legal or not.

I was going to write about how I'm helping ease DC out of this recession. But the more I write, the more I realize that this is no joking matter. It's literally highway robbery.