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I'd have to be crazier than a sh!thouse rat to NOT know that story. That said, it appears my expression has an unfortunate unintended interpretation.

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It's not a land problem, it's a ZONING problem. And since developers own this town, that's not going to change any time soon. There are TONS of options available (including the one you mention) – we just choose not to use them. Hell, you've got Bowen Island sitting 10 minute ferry ride away, but it will never be developed because it's become Vancouver's largest gated community.

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"What is the origin of the term 'brass monkey'?

The story goes that cannonballs used to be stored aboard ship in piles, on a brass frame or tray called a 'monkey'. In very cold weather the brass would contract, spilling the cannonballs: hence very cold weather is 'cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey'. There are several problems with this story. The first is that the term 'monkey' is not otherwise recorded as the name for such an object. The second is that the rate of contraction of brass in cold temperatures is unlikely to be sufficient to cause the reputed effect. The third is that the phrase is actually first recorded as 'freeze the tail off a brass monkey', which removes any essential connection with balls. It therefore seems most likely that the phrase is simply a ribald allusion to the fact that metal figures will become very cold to the touch in cold weather (and some materials will become brittle)."

Aside from all that, the balls were stored flat in the tray, not stacked. Why would anyone stack balls in a pyramid on a ship when any significant pitch would send them rolling every which way?

From another site:

"Other seafaring monkey business relates to ancient forms of cannon called a brass monkeys, or drakes, or dogs. These were recorded in an inventory published in 1650 – The articles of the rendition of Edenburgh-Castle to the Lord Generall Cromwel:

"Short Brasse Munkeys alias Dogs."

Brass drakes/monkeys were referred to in J. Heath's Flagellum, 1663: "Twenty-eight Brass Drakes called Monkeys" and in The Taking of St. Esprit in Harlech, 1627: "Two drakes upon the half deck, being brass, of sacker bore".

There's also a nautical reference from 1822 for the monkey tail which appears in the earliest known version of the phrase. This was a lever that was used to aim a cannon.

It might sound like the work of CANOE (the Committee to Ascribe a Naval Origin to Everything) but, given these citations and the large percentage of references to brass monkeys in nautical contexts, it seems likely that the inanimate object in question was in fact a naval cannon. The 'balls' are a recent appendage."

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"sux brass monkey ballz but at least the ballz don’t freeze off."

Funny story, do you know how the expression "cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey." came to be?

On old fighting ships they'd keep the cannon balls in a pyramid, to keep them from rolling away there was a brass plate bolted to the deck with impressions for the balls to sit in. That plate was called a 'monkey' and because of the difference in expansion between the two metals when the ship sailed into very cold weather the monkey would contract more than the iron balls causing the balls to 'freeze off'.

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I hate to break it to you but there is plenty of land left in B.C. and they can always re claim land and even then there are enough new condos coming to make prices drop for decades to come.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_reclamation

Here are some of the world class cities that have done so:

Land reclamation is the creation of new land where there was once water. Notable examples in the West include parts of New Orleans; Washington, D.C. (which is partially built on land that was once swamp); Mexico City (which is situated at the former site of Lake Texcoco); Helsinki (of which the major part of the city center is built on reclaimed land); the Cape Town foreshore; the Chicago shoreline; the Manila Bay shoreline; Back Bay, Boston, Massachusetts; Battery Park City, Manhattan; the port of Zeebrugge in Belgium; the polders of the Netherlands; and the Toronto Islands, Leslie Street Spit, and the waterfront in Toronto. In the Far East, Japan, the southern Chinese cities of Hong Kong and Macau, and the city-state of Singapore, where land is in short supply, are also famous for their efforts on land reclamation. One of the earliest and famous project was the Praya Reclamation Scheme, which added 50 to 60 acres of land in 1890 during the second phase of construction. It was one of the most ambitious projects ever taken during the Colonial Hong Kong era.[1] Some 20% of land in the Tokyo Bay area has been reclaimed.[2] Monaco and the British territory of Gibraltar are also expanding due to land reclamation. The city of Rio de Janeiro was largely built on reclaimed land.

Artificial islands are an example of land reclamation. Creating an artificial island is an expensive and risky undertaking. It is often considered in places that are densely populated and flat land is scarce. Kansai International Airport (in Osaka) and Hong Kong International Airport are examples where this process was deemed necessary. The Palm Islands, The World and hotel Burj al-Arab off Dubai in the United Arab Emirates are other examples of artificial islands.

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I don't hate Toronto. There's a lot to recommend it. But the weather is AWFUL. You can't go out in the summer because of the ungodly heat and pollution, and winter is pretty much self explanatory. But Vancouver has plenty about it that blows chunks too. Neither one should be pointing fingers.

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Made all the more frustrating by the fact that they don't care whether BC exists.

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