Aussies love assigning nicknames to everyone and everything. For first names, they take your first initial and append it with "azza" so Karen becomes Kazza, Jeremy becomes Jazza, and so on. For last names, they take the first syllable and add an "o" or "ie" - Lambert is Lambo and Brown is Brownie. Similar approach is used for cities and places: Brisbane = Brissy, Salvation Army = Salvo, McDonald's = Maccas. When a word can be shortened, it most likely is: footy for football, brekky for breakfast, parma for chicken parmigiana, roo for kangaroo, and arvo for afternoon.
An even more 
interesting (and weird) method is rhyming nicknames. Rather than trying to explain how it works which I'm not so sure I can do, I'll illustrate by using examples. At a football game, when a player scores, fans yell out "Sausage!" Why? Because sausage goes with roll (as in "sausage roll") and roll rhymes with goal but somehow roll was dropped so it's just sausage. When someone says, "Pass the dead horse" it means "Pass the ketchup." Well, Aussies call ketchup tomato sauce and they pronounce "dead horse" as dead'ause which rhymes with tomato sauce. Of course for me and you there is absolutely no logic behind it whatsoever but I guess somehow it makes sense to Aussies. Here's a couple more: To wear a "bag of fruits" means a tie and suit (well at least fruit actually does rhyme with suit). Lastly, Americans are called "Seppos" because Septic tank rhymes with Yank. I'm sure there are heaps more but this Seppo's got to go.Aussie word of the day:
Ta: thank you
Example: [Waiter:] Here's your bill. [You:] Ta.
Pictures: Our friend Miss K put on a fabulous one-woman musical comedy show at the incredibly kitschy Butterfly Club in South Melbourne. Afterwards we each got the special drink of the week called Skinny Cunt. When some girl asked the bartender what was in it, I said "Me!"
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