Odd life

I've had various 'it's a small world' coincidences before but last night's was still pretty random.

Lisa and I went to the New Criterion party (where we ran into James Taranto and the way too smart for his age Claudio) with a non-blogger friend of mine, Ren, and then were going to grab some food afterwards. As we left the party I said 'Dawn Summers invited me to a poker tournament on the west side.' Lisa perked up, 'oh?' 'Well, you wouldn't want to go would you? I mean, Dawn's friends can really be hit or miss and the buy-in is $30' (when the girls play on Friday nights we have a very friendly $5 buy-in). Lisa was smiling now 'oh, I don't know, I'd maybe go play if you wanted....' Ten minutes later we were in a cab sans Ren.

(Sidenote to this story is that the cab driver was listening to Michael Savage. I just do not understand Savage's appeal. I'm not a big talk radio fan in the first place but Michael Savage doesn't keep me interested whatsoever. The funniest part was that I asked the driver if it was indeed Savage and the driver answered 'yeah, he's a rightwing Republican'. I said 'oh me too.' The driver then said 'you too? So you like Bush!?!? It's your fault we got Bush?!?' Confused, I asked 'so you like Michael Savage but don't like George Bush?' 'I love Michael Savage! He is so smart!' he responded, not really answering my question. But that's a first for me, meeting someone who likes Republican talk radio but not Republicans.)

We get to the game, and are joined by Jessica. Hours go by, I have the worst possible beats (pair of aces beat by a four-cards-on-the-board flush kind of beats). It's sort of mentioned that Lisa and I had been at some type of right-leaning gathering before getting to the game. One guy asks me if I'm going to the inauguration (I was going but now its unclear that I am as I am so swamped at work) since he is heading down today. As we're leaving, he gives me his very unique business card to send him info on a party I was planning to attend. I look at it and realize I already have his card, we've met somewhere before. As he's still in the game, we don't have time to play the 'where could we have met' game. As we get in the cab, Dawn calls me. Turns out, Jessica and I met him at the conservative film festival we had attended in September in Dallas. How bizarre is that?

Update: Dawnie has more on the game.