All About Dustin!

My full name is Robert Dustin Cushman, but I go by Dustin both in life and online. Many people probably know me best as the guy who created and ran the soap pages for years and years; those being the Another World, Days of Our Lives and Passions pages. Those days are behind me now as I made the difficult decision to give them up after 14 years and move forward with my life and other pursuits, which you can learn about if you keep reading. Honestly though, I will probably never do anything else in life which will achieve the level of recognition I did with those pages.

I'm 32 years old and live South Jersey close to Philadelphia. I live with my boyfriend of 6 1/2 years, two dogs, five cats and some fish, which are in fact unimportant in my opinion. We also share the house with a few ghosts, yes I said ghosts.

We live in a haunted house believe it or not. One of the ghosts is a teenager who committed suicide decades ago. He's been identified because the BF's family has lived in the area forever and knew his family and him personally. Yes, he's been seen! Other ghosts that come around are believed to be attached to the land or a house that could have once been here. I have heard, felt and seen the ghosts . . . enough times that I don't need to ever again and I'd be happy. People think it's cool to live in a haunted house, until they experience it themselves!

In my free time I can usually be found watching TV, a movie or playing videogames. Once upon a time I ran a videogame page for the Sega Saturn system, but that seems like eons ago. I have pretty much every videogame system known to man right now, I just never seem to have enough time to play them. My favorite games are RPGs or adventure games. Some of my all time favorites include the Phantasy Star games, Lunar I and II and for the PC the old Ultima games and the Kings Quest series.

My favorite TV shows currently include Desperate Housewives, Brothers and Sisters, Medium, Heroes, Ghost Whisperer and Grey's Anatomy. I'm also fond of classic sitcoms like Rosanne, The Golden Girls and Designing Women.

My tastes in movies usually tend to be for horror movies. Ironically I tend to enjoy ghost stories or supernatural thrillers the most, as if the haunted house I live in isn't enough for me. The Fog (the original), Poltergeist and Watcher in the Woods are some of my favorites. Other movies I love are Hairspray (the original and the musical), the Star Wars films, the Harry Potter films, Aladdin and Too Wong Foo.

At the moment I rarely read outside of school. One day I hope to have time to read for pleasure again. My favorite books are the Harry Potter series and the Dragonlance novels. With books I tend to lean toward fantasy novels; wizards, dragons and all that stuff.

When I can I also enjoy getting to New York to see Broadway shows. I've seen Phantom, Mama Mia, Wicked, Hairspray, La Cage, Xanadu and Evita. I'm sure I've seen others, they just aren't coming to mind right now. I have never seen Cats and would love to, as well as seeing Auntie Mame if they ever revive it.

My favorite music tends to be poppy dance music, as I love to dance. Lately though I haven't gotten out to dance as much as I once did, mostly because the club scene in Philly has changed and not for the better in my opinion. My favorite artists of all time are Madonna, Alanis, Ace of Base, Abba and the Scissor Sisters. I do however listen to other types of music, though I stay away from country and rap at all costs.

Dustin and his Lynda Carter Wonder Woman Doll. Age, probably 4

For 7 long years I was a vegetarian, but the stress of grad school got to me and I dived back into the meat eating world. My favorite junk foods are pizza and McDonalds, which I could eat every day, if they weren't so bad for you (ie fattening). I also love cheese and veggie subs, eggplant parmesan and tofu dishes.

I am and always will be a kid at heart. I love collecting toys and have a nice size collection, in addition to all the toys I had as a kid which I refused to let my mom throw away. My largest collection is of Star Wars toys, but what I'm most passionate about collecting right now is Wonder Woman toys. I have an entire room in my house currently filled with all things Wonder Woman.

If you just can't get enough of me, you can check out my MySpace profile, my Facebook profile, my Twitter page, my Pownce page or my photo albums on Webshots. Yes one day I'll migrate over to flicker, I just haven't yet.

I currently author two blogs. ThatGuysBlog.com is my personal blog, on which I rant and rave about the various things going on in my life, share photos, post reviews of movies and videogames and basically whatever else springs to mind. It's a smorgasbord of me!

ThePrimeTimeDish.com is my blog dealing with primetime television and the shows I watch and love. I am and always will be a TV junkie. This blog was created originally in order to test the waters for possible new shows to add to the old soap site, but I had so much fun with the blog format and being able to cover a lot of shows easily and briefly that I kept it. I also wanted to try and get away from posting too much about TV on my personal blog.

I have two terriers, or "terrors" as owners of this breed affectionately refer to them. Princess Bumbles (Princess for short) is my Westie and the first of the two terrors I got. She was born on July 12th, 2004. She's the white one in the photos. I got the name Bumbles from Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. Bumbles is what Yukon called the abominable snowman. Nikko was my second, he's a Cairn Terrier and was born on October 18, 2005. Nikko is named after the captain of the flying monkeys from The Wizard of Oz, as he's a toto-dog. Both are AKC registered purebreds.

We have five, yes FIVE cats. I'm working to get good pictures of all of them. In order of age they are Lancelot, Galahad, Gawain (aka Moo Kitty), Percival (aka Percy or Orange Kitty) and Pilgrim (aka Grim). The first four were named after knights from the Arthurian legends. This was my BF's thing, not mine. We were to stop after cat number 4, but when the 5th stray kitten showed up he was taken in because I didn't want him to freeze to death or get run over. I put an end to the knights naming and named him Pilgrim because he showed up at Thanksgiving and was a true survivor. Pictured here are Lance (with Princess), Percy (the orange cat) and our newest kitten 'Grim.'

Dustin in front of a pyramid at Tulum, 2006

I graduated high school from Stonewall Jackson High School in Manassas, Virginia in 1993. In high school I was a total band and orchestra geek. I played the clarinet and the oboe and was in marching band, pep band, symphonic band and orchestra.

I went to George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia for undergrad and graduated in 1997 with a Bachelors in Anthropology as well as earning a certificate in Applied Archaeology.

In 1998 I entered graduate school at Temple University. I earned my Masters in Anthropology in 2003 and am currently writing my dissertation for my PhD, which I hope to have by Fall of 2008.

Archaeologically I'm interested in ancient religions, especially beliefs and practices pertaining to death. My dissertation deals with the burial rituals of the Native Americans often collectively referred to as the Delaware.

I've presented several papers on my work at local and national meetings, one of which was recently published in an archaeological journal. I have also taught several classes at the University level, including introduction to anthropology, cultures of the world and a class in prehistoric cultures and ancient civilizations.

I currently have two tattoos, a blue wizard on my right leg, which I got in May 2001. I also have a red dragon on my left leg, which I think I got in September 2003.

As you can probably guess, I'm a big fantasy buff, which was the inspiration for them. I've been wanting more for years, but have yet to make up my mind on what I want and where I want it. I am and have been for years toying with a Wonder Woman tattoo. At this point though I will probably have my current ones touched up before I get a third.

Both of my tattoos were done at Olde City Tattoo.

High School Diploma from Stonewall Jackson High School My Bachelor of Arts in Anthroplogy from George Mason Certificate of Applied Archaeology from George Mason University Master of Arts from Temple University in Anthropology