There is a lot of bad on the Internet, but today the hashtag #alicebucketlist is revealing there is a lot of good on it too. Users across the world are helping a 15-year-old British girl gravely ill with Hodgkin's Lymphoma fulfill her bucket list.

Ed Asner and Mario Andretti are among the hordes of users who tweeted references to Alice Pyne and her blog that lists a few of her bucket list items.

Her blog opens, "I'm 15 and I have terminal cancer. I've created a bucket list because there are so many things I still want to do in my life ... some are possible, some will remain a dream."

On Twitter Thursday, #alicebucketlist has been at the top of tending topics. While the most of the tweets said she wished to be a trending topic, the top of her list urges everyone become a bone marrow donor.

The outreach on Twitter has caught Alice by surprise it seems, but she reminds us there are many like her to whom we can reach out.

She writes, "There are lots of other kids like me and I thought that the best thing I could do is link to my favourite site for making poorly kids smile."
 

If you want analytics you'll want to stick with bit.ly or some other shortener, otherwise checkout Twitter's post on how to shorten your URLs.

Slim Jims are a trending topic on Twitter this afternoon, though it doesn't have anything to do with parent company ConAgra closing its Slim Jim plant in Garner today.

Fans of the meat snack's well-known pitchman, Macho Man Randy Savage, took to Twitter to mourn the death of the wrestling star.

The celebrity gossip site TMZ first reported Savage's death (CNN confirmed it), which occurred this morning as a Jeep he was driving veered across the road and hit a tree.

Proving the power of a good pitch, "Slim Jim" was trending on the social networking site Twitter mid-Friday at least an hour before "Macho Man" or "Savage" also made the cut.

Meanwhile, our article in today's paper mentions the changes going on at Slim Jim and ConAgra. The company decided it would be cheaper to transfer production to Ohio rather than rebuild the Garner plant that suffered an explosion in June 2009, says  N&O staff writer Sarah Nagem. Until the blast, Garner had been the world's only Slim Jim production site.

So it's likely that Randy Savage was snapping into a piece of Garner every time he uttered his famous phrase.

A couple months back, I ran into a UNC employee who asked me if I had been sick the previous week.

I had, and I asked him what made him suspect as much.

Well," he said, "There wasn't as much stuff on the blog last week as there usually is."

This was encouraging news, since it meant that Campus Notes was gaining some sort of foothold. It was flattering that at least one person followed it regularly enough to notice an occasional gap in service.

I've tried to use this blog to bolster my higher education reporting for the News & Observer in print and online. The blog and its twitter feed, @campus_notes, have helped me reach new audiences. They've also taught me what's popular on the web. For example, people seem to like videos of silly college kids engaging in what I like to call "planned spontaneity" in the campus library.

And blog posts about controversial Muslim leaders headed to town are popular too. And of course, the Granddaddy of all Twitter Trash Talk, UNC Chancellor Holden Thorp's Krzyzewskiville blast. That was an amusing day.

I'm really going to miss it all.

It's bittersweet for me to report that I'm leaving the News & Observer, my third newspaper in a 15-year journalism career, for a new job with the news office at Duke University.

My last day is Friday.

These are tough times for newspapers, which struggle to make money. (You're probably reading this on your computer. For free.) But the News & Observer is committed to its coverage of higher education here in the Triangle, one of the nation's most complex and dynamic higher education markets.

And the blog will remain as well, with contributions from a number of reporters and editors.

I've spent most of the last dozen years writing about universities here in the Triangle. I've learned a lot and I hope my reporting has been useful. I'm leaving this beat just as it's getting interesting, with sweeping changes to public universities beckoning on the horizon.

I'll follow all the twists and turns in the newspaper. I hope you will too.

Thanks for reading.

Fun's over.

UNC Chancellor Holden Thorp has now apologized for his tweet earlier today about Krzyzewskiville. Sheesh. And this Chancellor/President feud was just showing some promise.

Sheesh.

His latest:

"Sorry about the tent/Kville Tweet. Both U's have great students. I shouldn't have gotten carried away by our rivalry in basketball."

Well, I suppose that was fun while it lasted.

Thorp's apology came just after I used my journalistic cunning to pry this response out of Duke President Richard Brodhead:

"Hey Holden, someone hacked your Twitter account to talk trash. May the best team win. From the land of TRUE Blue, Dick."

Some context: Thorp's comments came during a digital town hall discussion on innovation.

Okay. Everyone get back to work.

It's on, now.

As you may recall, UNC-Chapel Hill Chancellor Holden Thorp stirred the pot something fierce this morning, calling out Duke University and its Krzyzewskiville tent city in the tweet you see below.

Subtle, huh?

Now, Duke President Richard Brodhead isn't on Twitter. But he's also apparently reluctant to let Thorp's gameday taunt stand unaddressed.

So here's his response, which just arrived in my in-box.

"Hey Holden, someone hacked your Twitter account to talk trash. May the best team win. From the land of TRUE Blue, Dick. "

Whoa!

UNC Chancellor Holden Thorp chimed in big time on Twitter today with a serious zinger aimed at Duke basketball and Krzyzewskiville, the tent city where hoops-crazy students spend a good portion of their winter.

Here's the link.

I smell a feud. Your turn, President Brodhead!

Free speech via Twitter is not guaranteed for pro soccer player Ryan Babel at least.

The BBC says the Liverpool striker was fined about $16,000 for his tweet protesting an official's call which roughly tallies to $275 per character.

The post linked to an altered image showing the referee in their opponent's uniform. "And they call him one of the best referees. That's a joke," Babel added.

You know you want to know if even you don't tweet. Who's using Twitter and how they are using it.

Yes, it's really him.

The @chanthorp twitter address you may have seen over the last 24 hours does, in fact, belong to Holden Thorp, the chancellor at UNC-Chapel Hill.

And here, he blogs about his tweets.

Can Facebook be far behind?