The Time 100 dinner, to be held tomorrow night at Jazz at Lincoln Center in celebration of the magazine's annual "Most Influential People in the World" issue, is a hot ticket, an exclusive and glittering black-tie affair. And it seems the influential people will go to great lengths not to miss it. Virgin mogul Richard Branson, on the list this year, is currently on a 325-mile dogsled journey across Canada's Arctic province of Nunavut to see the effects of global warming. He's rushing to reach his endpoint — the delightfully named Igloolik — by Tuesday morning so he can be whisked to New York to make the dinner that night. "Will get the husky dogs to work a little bit harder!" he e-mailed.

Richard Dawkins, the Oxford evolutionary biologist also on this year's list, is skipping a scheduled trip to the Galapagos Islands — a Darwinian! Not going to the Galapagos! — to attend. Local boldfacers from Henry Kissinger and Mike Bloomberg to Gayle King and Regis Philbin are set to be there, as are some potentially risky pairings. Rosie O'Donnell and Donald Trump are both on the guest list, as are Senator John Edwards and Ann Coulter, their first potential meeting since Coulter implicitly called Edwards a "faggot." The right-wing pundit is ready: "$400 for a haircut, John? Don't you think that's a little — oh, nevermind."