Rating Shit That Happened To Me In The Last Year

Well, I'm gonna try to force this into my schedule since I will be in Vegas next week without all of you (except Joanna). So Tuesday is the day when I normally do this thing where I rank different things like breakfast cereals, my nicknames or ways to get money illegally. Since I haven't talked to all of you in a year, I thought I'd recap my life for you this Tuesday.

Shit That Happened To Me In The Last Year

Moved out of the city - Thank God! As cool as it is to walk to and back from Howl At the Moon without worrying about not getting too fucked up to drive home, at some point you miss the comfort that running water can give to you. And I think toward the end, my roommates just gave up on the whole cleaning thing. I walked in my kitchen and turned the light on and it looked like a fruit fly experiment. Also, my roommate's bedroom caved in because of a leak in the bathroom, so we stopped paying rent and got taken to rent court... I'll explain all this later. A-

Got conked in the head with a line drive - Yeah, so I was playing third base in my D level old man softball league and I misjudged a ball and the distance I could leap from the ground, etc, etc. The ball hit me so hard I think the left fielder ran in and almost caught it. Everybody around me was seriously worried that I'd suffer some sort of brain damage. I spent all night making sure I could remember the names of all these famous celebrities (I read this thing in my class about proper name anemia). "Shit! Who was that third guy from Three Men and a Baby? Oh crap, I can't remember him! Wait, that was Steve Guttenberg. Nobody remembers him. OK, I'm fine." But I do have a permanent flat spot on my skull. That's kinda fucked up. D

Kevin moved back to the Philly area - It's pretty sad that one of the most major changes in my life is that somebody else did something exciting. So Kevin called me on Wednesday to tell me he decided to move back into town. "Really, when?" "Friday." So he packed his crap Friday and left Oregon for good. It must be nice to be so far in debt that it doesn't matter what the fuck you do anymore. A+

Was a groomsman in John and Rachel's wedding - This was easy. All I had to do was put on a tux and show up to a church on time. The brides maids had all this hair stuff and transportation and whatnot to worry about. I just had to wash the mud out of my hair and fingernails from the football game and walk John's grandma down the isle and sit down for an hour. They make it really easy on the guys probably because they know how incompetent we are when it comes to important things. So anyway, congrats J&R and thanks. A+

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.

See you in another 76 years,

Dustin Haley.


Still Standing Right Here...

Review of "Pleasantville"

Review of "Pleasantville"

You remember the critique I did of Waking Ned Devine? To recap, I'll just tell you that it was a fairly boring movie with a really cool ending confusing the lesser-intelligented people that it was a good movie. At least on their way out of the theater. Well, this movie is the exact opposite. Quite possibly in only that way, but you get the point. It was an excellent film on so many levels tainted by the "random grasp at an artsy ending" ending that it had. At the end. This guy in Pleasantville that had gone from good to sorta bad and back to good at the very end of the film was getting back together with his wife, and all of a sudden he turns into Jeff Daniels. I don't know how I would have ended the film, but I don't think that would have been it.

Now for the other 2 hours. This movie was incredible. It was great on so many levels, I probably didn't even get to fully enjoy it on all of them. And I fancy myself a pretty intelligent fella. Handsome too. It starts out by Don Knotts sending these two 90s kids to go back into this black and white 50s sitcom where everything is perfect and... well, pleasant. We don't know why he did this, what his plan was, and certainly how he did it. Whatever. It gets the movie started. Now these kids slowly corrupt this place little by little. People in this ideal town have never had sex before. Even the parents. Well, these kids come in and mix it up a little bit. They start boinking these people of Pleasantville, and this corruption makes them turn into color. Talk about a scarlet letter! Just like that chick with the red from Schindler's List. But in a completely opposite way I guess. But it's not just the sex that makes them change colors. It's the acceptance of change. Or something. I don't want to ruin it completely for you, because I require of all of you that you go see it. Eventually, the traditional folk riot the "coloreds" and put up signs that say "no coloreds allowed." Lots of literary and historically social references in this film. To Kill A Mockingbird, the aforementioned Scarlet Letter, Quantum Leap, Do the Right Thing, and this really cool Twilight Zone episode where monsters come down from another planet but don't really do anything except let the people tear themselves apart, to name a few. And the effects are incredible too. People walk around a world half in color and half in black and white. I can't believe I hadn't heard of this movie yet. It is very underrated on so many levels. Possibly because of the ending, but that might just be my own lack of tolerance for cheese in such matters. I'm giving this movie an unprecedented 9 1/2 bugs. I wanted to give it 10, but the ending is a real stumbling block I just can't get over. Maybe I'll sit down one day and think about it until I can convince myself it makes sense. I'm stupid enough to fall for that. But until then, I take 1/2 a bug away from it's perfect record.

Quote. Quote... Now I have to think of something funny somebody said. I got it!! Here's something good, but it's a real visual joke. And it makes fun of Russ, which is doubly awesome. Russ and a bunch of other coordinated people were playing a softball game today. There was a relatively close play at home in which Russ was directly involved, being the runner in question. Anyway, there were about 8 people all around yelling at him to slide. He does. But not really. He doesn't really stick one leg out and fold the other one underneath him like you're traditionally supposed to. Instead, he sort of timidly leaps both feet outward and in the air sticking in front of him and catches himself with his hands and sort of shimmies along until he finally gets to home plate. This looked like how most kids go on a slip and slide, but he did it on hard dirt. That's the best way I can describe this so-called-slide. But Derrick was able to describe it very loudly in a much better way...

Quote Of the Day 4/30/99

"What the hell was that Russ? You looked like a bear scratching his ass on the ground."

-FaTKiD groupie,

Cptn D.

You should see his crossover. He looks like a monkey scratching his nuts.

Setting bear traps on the basepath,

Poaching Cricket.


Still Standing Right Here...