I am Aynia's unventable spleen

It's a paradox. I have this blog which is a public forum and when something goes wrong, I like the idea that I can vent my spleen into the publicity of cyberspace and someone reads my rant and commiserates or laughs and even if they never comment to let me know, I still know that surely someone out there must have felt that way too. But this is a public forum and as such, one can't really properly vent one's spleen about certain things. Like certain clients one might have. I use two things to gauge my rants- (1) would I say it to their face (2) will it damage my business if this opinion is made public? If I wouldn't say it to their face, I sure as hell shouldn't write it behind their back and ship it off into cyberspace. I may have several hypocritical niggles in my persona but that facet ain't one of them. I guess it's because if someone's pissed off at me, I'd like to think they have the balls to say it to my face instead of mouthing off behind my back. As for (2), well that's just common sense.

But on to happier things, these Passionfruit Melting Moments are next on my baking hitlist. Mmmmmmmmmmm, passionfruit.

One Silly Ball

I don't know if I've written you guys a list yet of the many things I find funny about Australia. The wildlife rates up there pretty highly. They have birds that sound like monkeys, lizards that sound like birds and several species that look like leftover bits of many other animals all stuck together.

And the Aussies themselves are a constant source of amusement for me. On the whole they're very friendly and I've never met chattier shop people in my life and whereas I find it amusing that they seem to be able to shazza dazza just about anyone's name (and if they can't, they slap an "-o" on the end) but I thought my name was safe.

Apparently I was wrong.

In the absence of being able to 'azza' or 'o' me, at least two Aussies here (and that's two more people than have dared ever before in my life) have decided to shorten me to one sillyball (I've been thinking of BlackAdder recently). It's done so off-the-cuff and unexpectedly that I'm left blinking to myself going, "Did they just call me Aan?!" Because that's what it sounds like when you leave off the rest of my name. And you know what? I don't think I mind.* I never had a nickname growing up, my sister is the only one who has ever got away with shortening my name, so something supposedly as minor as this is rather novel for me. But seriously- only the Aussies mate, only the Aussies would try this.

And since I'm on the topic of Aussies and language, I feel the need to bring up something which really cracks me up and this is their use of the word shit.
That really shits me.
I cracked the shits.
It's shitting me to tears.
The last is my personal favourite and makes me giggle almost as much as when I first heard a Brit say, "It all went tits-up."

*Don't you go getting any ideas though. I'm quite happy with everyone using my name in full. More than quite happy.