Im making a custom 404 page, but for some reason the text in my list doesnt look right.... i cant figure out whats wrong with it.

www.teamspeakdisplay.com/404.shtml

the fonts dont match the rest on the site, and basically just looks kinda wonky....

It looks similar to me, which parts of your website, do you mean?

the fonts dont seem to match, and i cant seem to get them the right size.

the heading that says 404 is fine, and so is the text directly below it, but the sub-heading "Please try the following" should be a bit larger, and the list below it should have some kind of bullets beside them, but dont.

If you want bullets, use a standard unordered list. Definition lists, by default, do NOT have bullets. If you want one for your DL, define a background image that does not repeat for <dd>.

The text is not the same size since you have not defined the text size for the <dl>, but all <p> text is defined at 11px.

I have defined the text size for the dl, but when its set to 11, it isnt the same size as everything else still.

div#subtitle404{
    margin-left: 5px;
    top: 15px;
    color: #000000;
}
subtitle404, dl{
    font-size: 11pt;
    font-family: Tahoma,Verdana,Arial;
}
subtitle404, dt{
    font-size : 12px;
    font-family : Tahoma,Verdana,Arial;
    font-weight :bold;
    text-decoration: underline;
    margin-top : 5px;
    padding-bottom : 10px;
    margin-bottom : 0px;
    margin-left : 20px;
    margin-right : 41px;
}
subtitle404, a{
    color : #000000;
}
subtitle404, a:hover{
    color : #294A7B;
}

Ok, for one thing you should not be defining font sizes with px or pt, it prevents anyone with IE from resizing the text should the need to do so for their own needs.

If you want the text of the dl within subtitle to be a specific size, you MUST use proper syntax. You have this:

subtitle404, dl {font-size: 11px;}

That will only apply 11px to the <dl> because there is no tag "subtitle404". Your notation should be like this:

#subtitle404, dl{font-size: 11px;} - that will apply 11px to the text inside id #subtitle404 AND the <dl>.

If you want it to apply to JUST the <dl> within #subtitle404, then it must be written like this:

#subtitle404 dl{font-size: 11px;}

heres whats confusing the heck out of me.... id's classes, and the . and # ...

I read the id and classes thread you posted, but im still fairly well lost on the subject.
When im playing around with it, it seems that sometimes i have to use #something and other times i have to use .something for it to work..... to me it seems kind of random, but thats because of my lack of understanding.

It's not random at all, and what you're describing isn't just a matter of using an ID or a class, it goes to SPECIFICITY.

http://snook.ca/archives/html_and_css/understanding_c/

You need to understand the cascade and specificity too.