Recently, this appeared in my inbox:

You may not remember me-and it’s totally okay if you don’t-but my name’s Aimee. […] I found your blog because my Google reader recommended it based on my other reading habits. It turns out it was right, I was interested because I’ve met you and you are, in fact, funny. Your blog is ten different kinds of awesome- I really enjoy it.
The actual point of this email is that I was showing your blog to my boyfriend Dave, and telling him about Ugly Cakes. He was a man obsessed. He was insistent on an Ugly Cake for his birthday this year, and who am I to argue? So we took a photo of it, and I thought if you like you could add it to your collection of Ugly Cakes. […]

(Dave and I are very into American politics, and we’re both big lefties. The inscription is pretty illegible, but it says: Happy Birthday Dave, XOXO Bill O’Reilly. He was appropriately disgusted and hungry.)

Isn’t this just fantastic in every possible way? First of all, the cake is a perfect continuation of the ugly cake tradition with gross colours, random sprinkles, and malformed mounds for stars, all wrapped around a strong ugly concept. Apparently it was delicious though, which is key. Aimee also said nice things about my blog, which is just so flattering and makes me love this whole blogging thing, so thanks Aimee.

But the most amazing part is the small-worldness of all this. What are the chances that Google Reader would recommend my blog, out of all the world’s blogs, to a person who I’d met several times before?

Further evidence of the world’s diminishing size: last night was quiz night at the Black Shire Pub here in London Ontario. And who happened to be there? Well, it was Aimee. Before I’d even had a chance to respond to her email, there she was real life.

My good friend Nick, having kicked everyone’s ass at last week’s quiz night, was appointed the quiz master, asking all the questions for the night. He threw in some local content, including a question about London band The Gandharvas, who were pretty huge in the 90s. Later a dude approached him about that particular question; he found it interesting that the question came up, he explained, because he was the bassist in The Gandharvas. Again: small world.

And guess who won quiz night and will become quiz master next week, seeming to fulfill some sort of karmic Hindu cycle. None other than Aimee’s boyfriend, Dave, the recipient of the above ugly cake.