Your Day Sucks When

[MalahatTwo7]

Jose Paez waits for his brother-in-law to arrive to boost his car in chilly Saskatoon yesterday, where the temperature bottomed out at -41.1 Celsius -- marking the city's coldest Jan. 4 in 114 years of recorded temperatures. It broke the record of -40.0 set in 1966. Extreme wind-chill warnings were in effect for much of Saskatchewan and Manitoba yesterday.
Photograph by: Gord Waldner, Canwest News Service
© Copyright (c) The Victoria Times Colonist







Note: after -20d it doesnt matter if its Celsius or Fahrenheit, its all FREEK'N COLD!

[KB1OEV]

Note: after -20d it doesnt matter if its Celsius or Fahrenheit, its all FREEK'N COLD!

Actually at -40 degrees, Farenheit and Celsius are exactly the same temperature. Don't believe me? Look it up.

[MalahatTwo7]

Actually at -40 degrees, Farenheit and Celsius are exactly the same temperature. Don't believe me? Look it up.

I'm CANADIAN eh! Thats why I said at -20 or -40 it dont matter. C to F or F to C.... ITS ALL FREEK'N COLD AHAHAHAHAAHHAA

[doughesson]

Brothers in law are the glue that hold the world together.
Car won't start at -40 below?
You call your brother in law unless he sleeps on the couch in a three day beard,scares the kids and makes the place smell weird.

[MalahatTwo7]

When I was younger, we had a trucker friend who lived up in the REALLY Great White North somewhere (Yellowknife or somewhere up that way). Anyhow, he always said that if it was cold enough to freeze the brass balls off a monkey, he'd up and go back to bed and call in "dead".

Well as things being what they are, he owned a conventional cab Western Star (ya no account'n for taste there! LOL) with a statue of a brass monkey and yep.... you guessed it. Now this would be going back some 25 or 30 years ago, but anyhow, he went out to start the truck and when he slammed the door, pieces fell off the monkey...... Don't know if he ever called back for work after that.




Incidentally, there really is such a thing as "balls on a brass monkey". Those of you with a nautical bend will know what I'm referring too, especially if your 15th through 19th century navy lore is up to date.

[FireEeyore]

Yeah, a brass monkey is just the stand that held cannon balls on a ship.

[FIGHTING3rd]

Brother-in-laws:

Take your favorite hunting spot

Call YOU when there car breaks down

Eat your turkey leg at thanksgiving

Stink up your bathroom

Cause problems on 'that' side of the family, in turn your wife bitches at you for a week about it

Drinks your beer

Your kids like him more than you

...

Then asks "can I use you for a reference?"

[Dickey]

Hate to burst your bubble but that saying isn't true. I thought it was until I read this:

http://www.snopes.com/language/stories/brass.asp

I still like the saying though....

[MalahatTwo7]

Maybe you would like to confer with:

DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY -- NAVAL HISTORICAL CENTER
805 KIDDER BREESE SE -- WASHINGTON NAVY YARD
WASHINGTON DC 20374-5060
Brass Monkey
The word "monkey" is of uncertain origin; its first known usage was in 1498 when it was used in the literary work Reynard the Fox as the name of the son of Martin the Ape. "Monkey" has numerous nautical meanings, such as a small coastal trading vessel, single masted with a square sail of the 16th and 17th centuries; a small wooden cask in which grog was carried after issue from a grog-tub to the seamen's messes in the Royal Navy; a type of marine steam reciprocating engine where two engines were used together in tandem on the same propeller shaft; and a sailor whose job involved climbing and moving swiftly (usage dating to 1858). A "monkey boat" was a narrow vessel used on canals (usage dating to 1858); a "monkey gaff" is a small gaff on large merchant vessels; a "monkey jacket" is a close fitting jacket worn by sailors; "monkey spars" are small masts and yards on vessels used for the "instruction and exercise of boys;" and a "monkey pump" is a straw used to suck the liquid from a small hole in a cask; a "monkey block" was used in the rigging of sailing ships; "monkey island" is a ship's upper bridge; "monkey drill" was calisthenics by naval personnel (usage dating to 1895); and "monkey march" is close order march by US Marine Corps personnel (usage dating to 1952). [Sources: Cassidy, Frederick G. and Joan Houston Hall eds. Dictionary of American Regional English. vol.3 (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1996): 642; Wilfred Granville. A Dictionary of Sailors' Slang (London: Andre Deutch, 1962): 77; Peter Kemp ed. Oxford Companion to Ships & the Sea. (New York: Oxford University; Press, 1976): 556; The Oxford English Dictionary. New York: Oxford University Press, 1933; J.E. Lighter ed. Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang. (New York: Random House, 1994): 580.; and Eric Partridge A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English. 8th ed. (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company): 917.]

"Monkey" has also been used within an ordnance context. A "monkey" was a kind of gun or cannon (usage dating to 1650). "Monkey tail" was a short hand spike, a lever for aiming a carronade [short-sight iron cannon]. A "powder monkey" was a boy who carried gun powder from the magazine to cannons and performed other ordnance duties on a warship (usage dating to 1682). [Source: The Oxford English Dictionary. New York: Oxford University Press, 1933.]

The first recorded use of the term "brass monkey" appears to dates to 1857 when it was used in an apparently vulgar context by C.A. Abbey in his book Before the Mast, where on page 108 it says "It would freeze the tail off a brass monkey." [Source: Lighter, J.E. ed. Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang. (New York: Random House, 1994): 262.]

It has often been claimed that the "brass monkey" was a holder or storage rack in which cannon balls (or shot) were stacked on a ship. Supposedly when the "monkey" with its stack of cannon ball became cold, the contraction of iron cannon balls led to the balls falling through or off of the "monkey." This explanation appears to be a legend of the sea without historical justification. In actuality, ready service shot was kept on the gun or spar decks in shot racks (also known as shot garlands in the Royal Navy) which consisted of longitudinal wooden planks with holes bored into them, into which round shot (cannon balls) were inserted for ready use by the gun crew. These shot racks or garlands are discussed in: Longridge, C. Nepean. The Anatomy of Nelson's Ships. (Annapolis MD: Naval Institute Press, 1981): 64. A top view of shot garlands on the upper deck of a ship-of-the-line is depicted in The Visual Dictionary of Ships and Sailing. New York: Dorling Kindersley, 1991): 17.

"Brass monkey" is also the nickname for the Cunard Line's house flag which depicts a gold lion rampant on a red field. [Source: Rogers, John. Origins of Sea Terms. (Mystic CT: Mystic Seaport Museum, 1984): 23.]

www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq107.htm

Also, while I was on the Gulf Trip, we had a Petty Officer Storesman who was deep into Naval Lore, which is how and where I came to the definition. I had always assumed it was reference to an actual monkey statue, at least until I was asked to proof some papers that the Good PO was working on, for submission to the Naval Museum. Ho Hum.