Being Straylyan
 

At last, a yardstick by which you can measure an "Australian" For those of you who haven't met an Australian and are not sure what one is REALLY like!
You're not Australian 'til...

1) You've mimicked Alf Stewart from the TV show Home and Away's broad, Australian accent, eg. push off, ya flamin' drongo!"

2) You've had an argument with your mate over whether Ford or Holden makes the better car!

3) You've done the "hot sand" dance at the beach while running from the ocean back to your towel.

4) You know who Ray Martin is.

5) You start using words like "reckon" and "root" and call people "mate".

6) You stop greeting people with "hello" and go straight to the "how ya doin'?"

7) You've seriously considered running down the shop in a pair of Ugg Boots

8) You own a pair of ugg boots.

9) You've been to a day-nighter cricket match and screamed out incomprehensibly until your throat went raw.

10) You kind of know the first verse to the national anthem, but don't know what "girt" means.

11) You have a story that somehow revolves around excess consumption of alcohol and a mate named "Dave".

12) You've risked attending an outdoor music festival on the hottest day of the year.

13) You've tried to hang off a clothesline while pretending you can fly.

14) You've had a visit to the emergency room after hanging off the clothesline pretending you can fly.

15) You own a pair of thongs for everyday use, and another pair of "dress thongs" for special occasions.

16) You don't know what's in a meat pie, and you don't care.

17) You pronounce Australia as "Stralya"

18) You call soccer soccer, not football

19) You've squeezed Vegemite through vita wheat to make little Vegemite worms.

20) You suck your coffee through a Tim Tam.

21) You realise that lifeguards are the only people who can get away with wearing Speedos.

22) You pledge allegiance to Vegemite over Promite.

23) You understand the value of public holidays.

24) Your weekends are spent barracking for your favourite sports team.

25) You have a toilet dolly.

26) Your Mum or Nan made it.

27) You've played beach cricket with a tennis ball and a bat fashioned out of a fence post.

28) You firmly believe that in the end, everything will be ok, and have told a mate in tough times that "She'll be right, mate"

29) You use the phrase, "no worries" at least once a day.

30) You've been on a beach holiday and have probably stayed in a caravan.

31) You constantly shorten words to "brekkie", "arvo" and "barbie"

32) You've adopted a local bar as your own.

33) You know the oath of mateship can never be limited by geographical distance.

34) You measure a journey in beer, not kilometres or time. (That's a 3 beer trip mate).

There's a lot of reasons that I make of hanging out with the Straylians at the international conference I go to every other year. Several of them are on that list.

What actually charmed me about this year's crop is that they made a point of becoming acquainted with the homeless guy who was sleeping on the leeward side of our hotel.

lol...did they invite him for a beer?

Courtesy of an old mate of mine:
"the australian sailor's hornpipe" (to the tune of the sailor's hornpipe)

tiddlywinks old bean,
have you ever seen a queen?
have you ever seen a salmon up a dead sardine?
I've seen a tinker up a tailor and a soldier up a sailor
but I've never seen a slamon up a dead sardine!

I want to move to straylya.

I passed more of those questions than I do on the red or blue necks quizzes.

I can relate to #3, 11, 12, and 32....all apply to South Florida as well!

Add a #35: You have ever got 3rd degree burns from touching your steering wheel when you go out to your car after work.

You have a mate that you don't kiss.

That depends, are we talking footwear or underwear?http://www.cellar.org/images/smilies/wink.gif

If you just want to pretend to be Strine: Let Stalk Strine.

We apparently do this in Philly, too.

But...no ugg boots for me! I like biker boots.

What happened to G'day? And why does the 'how ya doin'?' remind me more of New Jersey?

That's because Australia is the New Jersey of the Southern Hemisphere.

No, how YOU doin'?

If australia had fatwas I'd issue one against you but we're too lazy mate.

Can you adopt me?

It's too damn cold here right now!

add #36: You've been on a pub crawl

new Aussie definitions

billabonk: to make passionate love beside a waterhole
bludgie: a partner who doesn't work but is kept as a pet
dodgeridoo: a fake indigenous artefact.
fair drinkum: good quality Aussie wine.
flatypus: a cat which has been run over by a vehicle
matesh*t: all your flatmate's belongings lying strewn around the floor
shagman: an unemployed male roaming the Australian bush in search of sexual activity
yabble: the unintelligible language of Australian freshwater crustaceans
bushwanker: a pretentious drongo who reckons he's above average when it comes to handling himself in the scrub
crackie daks: 'hipster' tracksuit pants
shornbag: a particularly attractive naked sheep
technicolour lawn: the front yard after a rave party


My first Cellar post - ripper!