Top 15 Quotes about Dustin

One deadline made, one deadline broken. Oh well. Last I checked, this was free for everybody so we’re gonna go ahead and forgo that “every weekend” crap and just say I’m gonna try to get this out once a week.

And before I begin, you need to know something. I apparently wrote A LOT in the last 15 years on this QOTD thing. I guess I knew that, but just not to the extent that it actually was. I have these saved by “season” for the most part – not individual files, and the 99-00 season is 131 pages long single-spaced. And a lot of it is real crap. I can’t believe you guys actually pretended to be that interested in my life. The things I thought were funny. Jeez. But there are still a lot of incredible gems, as you’ll hopefully agree with soon. Anyway, there were too many great quotes to just pick 15, so I split them up into themes. This week’s Top 15 in 15 are the best 15 quotes about yours truly, as I’ve been the subject of some harsh and thusly humorous ridicule over the last 15 years (really, the last 35, but my records only date back to 95). So without further adieu (and without repeating anything you may have read last week), have at it.

Top 15 Quotes about Dustin

#15

So anyways, I was talking to Dan after I had stayed up all night for no flippin' reason about the trail of ex-girlfriends I had and the things they had in common. I started relating what they had in common to the color of their hair. I told him that all of the blonds I dated did one certain thing after we broke up, and the one redhead I dated turned gay when we broke up (and no, I'm not proud, and I didn't do it completely. She was already bi). To this, Dan replied…

Quote of the Day 11/18/97

"OK, you're not allowed to date anymore redheads if you're gonna waste them like that."
-Dan (the guy who drinks a whole hell of a lot) Gregory

#14

…At any rate, this quote comes from a friend of mine who beat us in soccer last semester. I was walking around in shorts and he is always baffled how I don't get cold. So he asked me if I was cold, and I told him that the temperature is all in your mind. To this, he responded...

Quote of the Day 4/10/96

"Yeah, but I'd hate to have to walk around thinking all day."
-Shawn Something

The best argument yet for me to wear pants.

#13

…I wore my favorite shirt into the dining hall (the button down one that is mostly skittle green, but has about 4 other gaudy pastel colors in it that don't match each other), and ran into quite a few people who haven't seen me in the shirt before. Jason Yankus, a pretty good friend of mine, saw me for the first time in about a week – with my shirt on – and of course a bright pink hat to accompany it, and the first thing he had to say to me wasn't "Hi" or "What's going on" or anything like that. He just walked straight up to me and said...

Quote of the Day 11/4/97

"WOW! Don't walk under a black light. You'll hurt somebody."
-Yankus

That still doesn't equal the damage Andrew's face can do under a normal light. (Bring it on, Proz!)

#12

Alright, I'm late. I gotta go. No time for wit. If you all know me, and you all do, you know I wear a pink hat most if not all of the time. Well, I was wearing this hat one day that isn't quite neon pink, but more purplish than most people are used to. My friend asked me what was wrong with the hat. It wasn't bright pink like the rest of them. I told him I was sort of depressed that day and wasn't in a neon pink hat mood...

Quote of the Day 4/15/96

"Well, that's not too bad if the most depressed you get is lavender."
-Crossover Manser (friend from home)

#11

My sister and her boyfriend were rolling through town in their RV a few months back at the same time I was having my old man D league softball game, so I asked her to stop by and the following conversation ensues between the two of them...

Quote of the Day 3/3/04

Char: "We're going to Dustin's softball game."
J-Me: "Don't you mean baseball?"
Char: "No, I mean softball. He's old."

And I'm not even good.

#10

Well, today was another Pimp Daddy Day. It was even Pimp Daddier than it was yesterday. Kate and I were sitting on the little ledge outside and talking about how I don't have any balls or guts or anything. Then I looked up and saw a cute girl in the parking lot. I asked Kate how much money she'd give me if I just brazenly walked up and kissed her...

Quote of the Day 3/15/96

"I won't give you any money. I might even give her a few dollars."
-Kate

#9

I know I'm late and I promise this won't become a habit, but I was asleep until ten today. Tonight. Anyway, this quote comes to us all the way from PA, from my friend and unpaid psychologist, Brian Reagan. Every time I go home and seek advice about my life, I always consult him. And he's usually right. A lot of you have heard this quote before, and I'm sure you'll all appreciate it. This is just a little piece of advice he gave me before I left for school:

Quote of the Day 3/10/95

"You worry too much. Life's not that important... Especially yours."
-Brian Reagan

#8

So I'm now addicted to this new board game called Settlers. It's overwhelming characteristic is that you can't explain it to anyone else. It's a board game somewhere between Risk and Civilization, and I'm going to leave it at that for now. I play this game with John and other people my age a lot, but now that I bought it myself I've introduced it to my college friends and I found myself on a Monday night/Tuesday morning playing it in the lounge of a dorm until the sun came up. That was a serious déjà vu. Probably because I had just done it the previous Saturday night too. But it was also a reality check for me. I was hanging in the lounge with two 19-20 year old sophomores when this came out. I know this comment was made with the intent to demean himself, but he did a pretty good job of deflating my self-worth in the process...

Quote of the Day 3/11/02

"I need to get a life. It's a Saturday night and I'm in the lounge playing a board game with my RA and a 27-year old man."
-Colin Fergus, adolescent child

Well, at least he called me a man.

#7

So I started hanging out with John and Scott and Giese again because I was starting to feel old always hanging out with the college crowd. That didn't help. At least now I feel like WE'RE old, as opposed to just me being old. Anyway, we've been getting together to play these games like Magic and Elvenland and the Bean game recently. We try to do this once a week and in the process I have realized that all these people still hung out with each other even after I stopped hanging out with them. I don't know why I expected the entire crowd to lose touch just because I did. Maybe that's a testament to how self-centered I am. But enough about me - We got together and I started asking about all these people and realized that I was so far out of the loop with my old 3rd South crowd. To this, Scott very appropriately responded...

Quote of the Day 3/3/02

"Well, that's because you're the only one who stayed in the loop."
-Scotty Too Hotty

#6

I was over at John's apartment and we were studying for our mid-term (complaining about how we're losers going nowhere), and I saw all of his D&D books, and I mistakenly thought I could insult John and get away with it. Well, here's the consequence...

Quote of the Day 10/11/96

Me: "How sad. You spend your life living in a false reality."
John: "You spend your life kicking a ball."

Touché!

#5

Anyway, for those of you who don't know, I am now a certified drunk. This past Friday marks my third time ever. And I was weird. I didn't have a hangover. I think I actually woke up still drunk. Apparently, that isn't as uncommon as I thought it was at first. I was sober enough to still whoop some Good Joe ass at tennis though, let me tell you! But I think Joe put it best the following day when he wrote me back. He's been my friend for about 6 or 7 years now, and has hung out with me more than anyone on this list, but has never seen me drunk until that night...

Quote of the Day 9/21/98

"It was really weird to see you like that... drunk, on top of being Dustin already."
-Good Joe

In other words, I'm drunker sober than a normal drunk is... Whatever.

#4

On the plus side, while I was out in Oregon, I got a dose of self-realization. Not necessarily in the spiritual sense, but my friend's wife pretty much put me in my place in the most exact way I think I've ever been described, word for word. I was trying to defend the point that I was relatively laid back when I'm not with Kevin, Joe and/or Mike. Kevin didn't buy it. Tanis hasn't known me since middle school, so she was more apt to believe...

Quote of the Day 6/10/02

"Well, I guess you have the potential to not be this spastic all the time."
-Tanis, holder of the whip

I have the "POTENTIAL"... not to be THIS spastic... ALL the time.

#3

This quote came a while back from the day that I went to my RA interview. As you know, every time I have to do something formal, I run around the night before borrowing clothes that are respectable enough to wear from anybody willing to lend them to me. And from all of these, I can generally make a decent looking outfit. Anyway, I stopped by Sedge's room seeking a little fashion advice, and he started telling me to match shirt to tie, and tie to belt, and belt to shoes...

Quote of the Day 3/7/96

"These are just strict rules of fashion, and you follow the rules of fashion like most people follow the speed limit."
-Dr. Sedge

#2

I'm pretty sure I got ripped off by the gas station in Philly for the gas can. It's kinda like a tow truck. They can overcharge, because they know you need the service. I have an idea for a way to make my millions. But anyway, I was pissed about it...

Quote of the Day 1/18/05

Me: "What kind of a place charges $9.00 for a gas can?"
Leigh: "What kind of a 30-yr-old man runs out of gas?"

OK, Rendé. You win this round.

#1

The following quote was actually taken directly from John's wedding program and the reason I am using it is because it describes my relationship not only with him but also the other 249 people on this list. Anyway, so John had a few sentences about everybody in his wedding and here is an excerpt from mine...

Quote of the Day 3/16/04

"...Dustin orbits in and out of my life at regular, comet-like intervals..."
-John and Rachel's Wedding Program

If that doesn't describe my relationship with you here, then it probably will once you graduate from UMBC.

So there you have it. Only one repeater on the list and go figure it would be the sharp tongue of the former roomie. Nothing from Mike, Kevin or Tony though, surprisingly. But don’t worry, there are still plenty more weeks of this to come. And they’ll likely pop up as early as next week in the Top 15 Improvisational Quotes of the Last 15 Years.

Operation Vegetarian: Week Two

Operation Vegetarian: Week Two

So I made it through my first week, which is apparently longer than Jen had thought I would last. Good to know I have a supportive partner in all this. Throughout the week, I thought about exactly why I was doing this and I came up with what I think is the real reason, other than Jen is making me so it, which is also a motivating factor. And the answer is that it is easy. Not in its execution, but in its definition of parameters. The difference between a vegetarian diet and a low carb diet (besides the many health benefits associated with it that I have no idea about) is that I know what meat is and therefore I can figure out when not to eat it. I know what beef looks like. I know what bacon looks like. I have no idea what a carb looks like. So if all I have to do is define something as meat and not eat it, it’s much easier to figure out how to eat.

That having been said, there are still many different versions of vegetarians. Some eat fish, which kinda blows my mind. In what world are fish not meat? Actually, I know the answer to that. That’s what I call a “Catholic Vegetarian.” I am on the Darwinism Vegetarian diet, where fish count as meat. They swim around, they bite, they have their own little heartbeats. Personally, I say that makes them meat.

Day Eight: I had the leftover couscous today and was told that it apparently has chicken broth in it. Jen apparently says that as long as it doesn’t have chunks of meat in it, that it doesn’t count. So I’m rescinding that I cheated on day one with the gravy incident. Apparently, if ground up fine enough and added to liquid, anything can be vegetarian. I will be testing out a chicken milkshake tomorrow.

Day Nine: I finally got my ass out to get some peanut butter & jelly. This will be my new best friend, I’m sure. I had three sandwiches throughout the course of the day. Cupcakes are also a familiar friend of mine, as I finally bought them in bulk today. I had given them up previously because of my cholesterol issues. I don’t think this is a very smart diet at all.

Day Ten: As predicted, I had PB&J for lunch again. Only this time, rather than having a healthy dinner, I had an Auntie Anne’s pretzel for breakfast and leftover mac & cheese for a midnight snack. I actually think the guy from Supersize Me was eating healthier than I am.

Day Eleven: Joe drove me to work today as I had to drop my car off at the mechanic because I made a deal with the devil a long time ago that stated something in the contract about never having a functional car for longer than two consecutive months. Joe stopped by Chick Fil-A after picking me up and I almost forgot that I was a vegetarian. He reminded me while we were in line, the prick. SO I had a milkshake for breakfast. Also, Jen and I decided to attend the Nats game tonight and baseball stadiums are known for being notoriously difficult to find vegetarian options. So I had a nice healthy dinner of french fries once again. Thankfully I had filled up on PB&J for lunch.

Day Twelve: So the great thing about this time of year is that with all the wooing of the new students comes free lunches for all the staff. So this was the first of the free lunches that I’ll be getting about every other day until just about the end of this diet. Now, as all free lunch caterers know, there are vegetarians amongst the normal people, so there are always vegetarian options. However, some of them suck. Thankfully today, both options sucked so it didn’t feel like I was missing out on anything. I had a lot of Caesar salad. Julius would have been proud.

The night provided a bit of a challenge though, as I found myself out at a sports bar trying to navigate my way through the menu. I wound up once again eating fries and an entire order of meatless nachos because somebody either doesn’t know how to order nachos with meat on one half or make nachos with meat on one half.

Day Thirteen: This is the day I’d been waiting for since the beginning of this operation. While Jen and I were still up in Boston, I came to the fortunate revelation that I had already replied to Leigh’s wedding, saying that I’d have the steak and she’d have the fish. That was to fall right in the middle of this vegetarian challenge. Joe simply said “Yeah, you can make exceptions like that.” Well, shit! “Honey, it’s steak night at Outback.” “But baby, it’s Fried Chicken Awareness Week in the Mt. Vernon area.” “Sweetie, it’s National I’m Tired of Peanut Butter & Jelly Day.” Well, we decided not to exploit this epiphany just yet, but we sure as shit weren’t going to re-reply with the vegetarian option. And so, there it was. A nice, juicy, melt in your mouth exception that I’d been drooling about for two weeks. And I dropped it on the floor. Just kidding. It was awesome. Kinda made me wonder what the hell I’m doing this for again. So congratulations to Leigh and Craig for getting married and thank you so much for inviting Jen and I to this very special day. You have NO idea how much it means. J

Day Fourteen: Today completely sucked. Because now the exception is over and the only thing I have to look forward to is Day Thirty-Two, or the first day of the rest of my meat-eating life. Oh yeah, after having Chips Ahoy cookies for breakfast and chopped up peppers and steamed asparagus for dinner, I decided that it was probably OK to only do it for the originally intended month rather than 6 weeks, which seems more arbitrary anyway. Until then, I’ll be dreaming of that steak from last night. And I’m starting to look at the cats in a different way.

Rating Times I've Run Out of Gas

Times I've Run Out of Gas

I'm not proud of it, but I've run out of gas at least four times in my life, each of them worse than the last. Except the third one. That's tough to top. Anyway, here are the stories of these events. All dates approximate.


Sun, Jan 24, 2001 1:00am - I-95 on my way back to UMBC from PA on a Sunday night. I ran out of gas somewhere around Aberdeen and this predates my ownership of a cell phone. I had no idea which way was the closest exit, so I just started walking forward. After about a mile, my ankle reminded me that I had just ruptured my Achilles tendon about 4 months ago. Some random guy stopped saw the car about a mile back and saw me limping toward the exit in the freezing cold and put two and two together. He picked me up just as I was getting to the exit and drove me to get gas and a gas can and drove me back and wouldn't let me give him any money. He just made me promise to help somebody else out someday. And that was 5 years ago now. Wow. I just made myself feel like an asshole. Well, it was a cool ending, but lacked the drama some of these next ones come with. B-

Sat, Aug 5, 2002 4:00pm - Route 1 just off I-195. Tony had just told me that his car got 400 miles to the tank and I wanted to try to see if my car could. I pushed it a little too far. On the plus side, I got just over 400 miles. On the minus side, I got about .25 miles less than I needed. I stalled out on my way down the exit and coasted to a stop on the way up a little tiny bridge just on the other side of a gas station. And nowhere to go. Fuck. I couldn't drift far enough back to get on the shoulder and I couldn't push it up either hill. So I shoved the car as far over as I could so only about half of it was in the right lane. Then I started to run to the gas station only about a 1/2 mile away. Meanwhile, some hick in a pickup truck stopped to pick me up and help me out. I really didn't need it, but I didn't want to belittle his attempt to help, so I obliged and got in the cab with his son. He drove me the rest of the way to the station and I filled up a new gas can (cause I never keep them) and he drove me back to my car, making racist comments the entire time I was with him. It wasn't much, but I thought I'd offer him a few bucks to show I appreciated his help and to help his kid realize that good deeds go rewarded. He took it. Jerk. Exciting place to run out, but not a great conclusion. Though it was an idiotic reason to run out of gas in the first place. B+

Mon, Dec 27, 2004 1:00am - Ben Franklin Bridge. OK, I'm coming back from a Jersey bar after watching a meaningless Eagles game with Kevin, Leigh and a few friends. I took my parents car because mine doesn't really have heat. I did not know that the gas gauge reads 1/8 of a tank when it's really empty. So it starts to putter out just as I got to the tolls and I think "OK, I'll just get gas as soon as we get into Philly." Well, Kevin and I make it halfway up the bridge and... pfffftt. That word was supposed to represent the car running out of gas. This is very dangerous. I'm on a bridge in a car going over the Delaware River and all of a sudden, well, I'm not on a bridge in a car going over the Delaware River. But all the cars behind me think I am. Little do they know that I'm on a bridge in a car sitting still about 1/2 a mile above the Delaware River. So I put my blinkers on to signify to all the buses coming up on our ass at 60 mph (if you're my mom, stop reading this now) to get the hell out of the way, there's a big problem. And I definitely lost my cool. I was in fear for my life. Kevin, meanwhile, was writing a country song about it. Well, he was at least more relaxed than I was. I came up with a plan I thought was best at the time, to drift backwards down the bridge into Jersey to at least get onto a shoulder near the toll booth. As I'm doing this, a cop came up behind me. Thank God. I've never been so happy to see a cop before in my life. He puts his lights on and parks behind me. He comes up to the car and asks if I've been drinking. "Drinking?!? I'm out of gas halfway up the Ben Fucking Franklin Bridge and you're asking me if I've been drinking?!? Who gives a fuck?! Yeah, I've been drinking officer, I've been drinking gas and I'm out. Now can you give me a fucking hand?!?!?" Actually, I think I said something like "no." He tells me to put the car in neutral and he'll come up behind and push me to safety. Brilliant! He even did it free of charge! So I was ecstatic when I got to Philly and pulled over. He asked if I had a plan to get out and I lied and said yes and he left. Whew! Thank God that was over! So I start to wander into North Philly to look for a gas station while Kevin gets the guitar out of the trunk and gets back to work in the car. I call my dad, who notifies me that I had just walked into like the heroin capital of Pennsylvania and tells me to get the hell out of there. So I do. This also happens to be the coldest night of winter to date and I'm in the middle of the city with an elf-looking Eagles hat on. And I'm with a guy dressed like a cowboy. I still can't believe I didn't get mugged. Well, thank God for cell phones. I called Leigh, who met me at an intersection I thought she could find and we did the part I've become a seasoned expert at by now. Elapsed time from running out of gas to leaving the scene = 2 hours. Danger factor = about as high as it can get. Other elements - freezing cold, heroin district, faulty design in gas can. A+

Mon, Jan 17, 2005 4:00am - In front of Mike's place. (mom, you can start reading again) Mike and I had just gotten cheesesteaks in Philly and I was about to drop him off and go home. I knew I needed gas soon, but I didn't know how soon (all the interior lights in my car don't work - kind of romantic, very unhelpful). I figured it could wait until I dropped him off and I'd get it on the way back. Well, it might have, had we not sat in my car talking for about an hour. All of a sudden, pfffftt. Not again. Fucking twice in a month. At least I'm in a parking spot in front of a friend's house who happens to have a car and doesn't need to be at work until 5pm the following day. So we drive to my parent's place and get the gas can that still has some gas in it from my parent's car (which it never made it out of) and drive back to Mike's place. Easy enough. Except for the faulty gas can that Kevin never showed me the trick of last time. So while I spilled gas all over the finger of my glove (and none in the tank), and kicked the gas cap so hard it broke, Mike was diligently pouring the gas into his water bottle and pouring the water bottle into the tank. The shit you learn when you get a history degree. The danger factor was as low as ever, but the idiocy factor makes up for it. As well as the fact that I'll have to think about it everytime I get gas now, since the cap is broken. C+

I'm pretty sure I got ripped off by the gas station in Philly for the gas can. It's kinda like a tow truck. They can overcharge, because they know you need the service. I have an idea for a way to make my millions. But anyway, I was pissed about it...

Quote of the Day 1/18/05

Me: "What kind of a place charges $9.00 for a gas can?"
Leigh: "What kind of a 30-yr-old man runs out of gas?"


OK, Rende. You win this round.

Running into the sun but I'm running behind,

D Rec.


Still Standing Right Here...