Bare bones drupal (or other)?

I'm trying to setup my server with a bare bones blog and forum on my server, and I'm currently searching for the best way to do that.

I'd considered setting up Wordpress and phpBB, but I'd like to have single signin between the blog and forum.

Now I'm leaning towards a barebones drupal install, and I have a few questions:

1. Would it be easy to customize drupal with my own style? Assuming a working knowledge of CSS, but no prior drupal experience?

2. If I wanted to add my own dynamic content (for instance, a page that pulled quotes from a database and displayed them) how hard would it be to integrate with my drupal site?

3. Lastly, is there a better way to do an integrated, yet simple site like this that I'm overlooking?