Why blog?

I've been asked by people over the years why I maintain a blog, LiveJournal, or whatever the current method of chronicling thoughts on the internet is. I've also been asked what my "theme" is. I have a few free moments, so I'll address those points.

First of all, my theme. As anyone who has read my various iterations of journaling/blogging over the past 6 years knows, I have no overlying theme. I don't keep a photo journal, I don't keep to one topic such as book reviews or sporting events or breast cancer or political opinions (although during Election 2008, I did have a recurring series of blogposts about things said or done by Democrats that I found particularly laughable)...when the spirit moves me, I type something up. The quote at the top of my page reflects my style:

Write down the thoughts of the moment. Those that come unsought for are commonly the most valuable. ~~Francis Bacon

That's my theme in a nutshell.

And that also dovetails into why I maintain a blog. Not only is it a way for me to gather my thoughts in a more organized fashion, but it gives me a way to share those thoughts with others who know me, especially friends and/or family who are out-of-town. We don't have to arrange a phone call or make sure everyone is copied on an informational email, but instead you can just drop by for a visit and catch up on what's been going on in the mind of Dawn. Granted please don't think there was nothing going on in my head for the 4 months after the wedding; that's called getting settled into a new job, new apartment, new city, and enjoying newlywed bliss with the new hubby. Picture a big 'ole smile and you'd be right!

My blog posts pretty much sound like a typical conversation with me. I'm not politically correct, I often ramble in a stream-of-consciousness fashion, and you might wonder, "Where did that thought come from?" But most of y'all probably are used to that. For example, I was thinking in the shower the other morning about the Flintstones and how the family, gender, and social dynamics portrayed reflected what I concerned "the norm" when I was growing up...and this considering the cartoon originally aired in the early 1960s and I was watching it through reruns in the early to mid '70s. Wacky, I know, but you never know what's going to go through my mind...or what is going to set my fingers into "type it out" mode.

My blog is entitled "This, That, and The Other" and that's the perfect description for the "anything goes" selection of topics you'll find here. That's me...that's my blog. Time to leave the office...I'm ready for a beer.

I thought this day would never come...

the day that a fanbase could supplant my 30 years of detesting UGA fans. Enter the baby-blue whiners from UNC. Yes, my 4 years at Wake Forest taught me the pleasure and duty of hating Carolina and somewhere in a box of college stuff, I still have one of the gold & black "Beat Carolina" signs that were issued to all Wake students attending the annual UNC/WFU matchup at Greensboro Coliseum. However, it has taken the 21st century internet message board as well as 6 months of living in the Triangle to bring me to my current level of revulsion for UNC fans.

Where do these clowns get their pompous superiority? Are they injected with it upon purchase of their first UNC t-shirt from Wal-Mart or does it come attached to their drive-by diplomas? I see many similarities between UNC & UGA :

1. Both schools have more fans that didn't attend the school than did. This phenomenon is known as "Wal-Mart Bandwagon Fandom" whereby a person chooses a team based on the number of apparel items they see on racks at Wal-Mart. Chances are if they see more Duke or Clemson shirts next year, they will become the "biggest fan evAr" of that team...for that year.
2. Both schools have a polar opposite in the form of an academically superior engineering school (NC State & Georgia Tech) which makes their fans feel extremely threatened.
3. Both schools have journalism schools which turn out the most biased writers in the history of the printed word.
   
4. The fans of both schools pollute the newspaper blogs & internet message boards with delusional boasts of eternal superiority (usually filled with misspellings).
5. The fans of both schools have a martyr complex when challenged.

When I moved to the Atlanta area in 1980, the media was saturated with constant fawning over UGA and articles about "Herschel this" and "Herschel that"...(note to the eleventy billion uneducated UNC fans out there: that's Herschel Walker.) Spring forward 29 years and daily, nay hourly, media references to Tyler Hansbrough and "his will" have been shoved down the throats of residents in the Triangle. Talk about deja vu!

As the night of the NCAA championship game winds down, I can only hope that the idiots who flood Franklin Street, no matter what the outcome, get what's coming to them: the clap, explosive diarrhea, or a night in jail.