Boys Gone Wild

At 10:30, we beelined it from the bar to the hotel's front entrance, bottles raised in a drunken war-whoop. Some of the guests cheered back. Most didn't look up from their slots.

After a few minutes, a stretch Hummer rolled up to the Plaza's driveway and we piled in. Our destination: Risque, a club in Paris Las Vegas. As farcical as casino themes may be, it's stunning how unironically we assimilated them. The clove cigarettes emerged. My shirt somehow came unbuttoned.

Come 3 a.m. we found ourselves back at the Plaza, face-deep in the buffet, topping off the unholy amount of alcohol in our stomachs with full plates of fried chicken, stir-fry, home fries, pancakes, bacon and the occasional string bean. We drained our water glasses, chewed the ice, headed upstairs and let gravity do the rest.

Day 2: A Strip Tease

Given our diet, our band of four decided to power-walk the Strip. We drifted from one mega-hotel to another, spectators in the never-ending game of one-upmanship among competing Las Vegas resorts -- like an arms race, but with eyesores. First the Venetian, then New York-New York, then Luxor . . . It was Epcot Center for people who find Epcot too deep. We even had our own idea for a hotel. Call it the Las Vegas Las Vegas. Inside is everything you would find in the city itself, except now you don't have to leave the hotel to get to it!

That night we rode a yellow limo, dubbed the "banana-wagon," to Mandalay Bay, the three-pronged luxury hotel that overlooks the rest of the Strip. After bypassing the line to the penthouse Foundation Room, we lit up factory-second cigars on the balcony, surrounded by outdoor heaters. As we beheld the Strip, laid out below us in its pointillist glory, we searched for the words to describe this level of partying. Oh right, "beyond our means."

In college, a girl may be out of your league. In Vegas, she is out of your tax bracket. At Mandalay Bay, they were both. After blowing a few dramatic smoke rings, I struck up a conversation with some girls from Chicago staying at the MGM Grand. I made the mistake of bragging about my discount tour package. I then enthusiastically told one of them I major in history. If the conversation hadn't been over before it began, it ended there.

"It's okay, man," Chi told me. "They were beasts in disguise."

Three botched pickups later, we returned to the hotel to rest up. A big day lay ahead.

Day 3: Beer Pong or Bust

We ate a breakfast of champions. I carbo-loaded and chugged water. Chi ate the better part of a melon. Brad sandwiched a layer of fro-yo between two chocolate chip cookies. Today would require discipline, physical and spiritual. For only one team would win the intramural Beer Pong Tournament, and we would be that team.

An hour later, 28 guys -- 14 teams of two -- sat along the periphery of a large party space, sizing up the competition. Ten foldout tables stood bare except for basic equipment: plastic cups, Ping-Pong balls and "Mint Tingle" Trojans, the last serving as yet another sad reminder that we all had Y chromosomes. The premise of Beer Pong is simple: Whichever team sinks the most Ping-Pong balls in their opponents' cups wins.

Kanew shushed the room and announced the teams. Alex and Chi were Michael Irvin's Glove Compartment. Brad and I, ruling out physical intimidation, had signed up as the Apostles of Pain. The winner, Kanew said, would receive a bottle of Grey Goose vodka and VIP treatment at the club that night.

"And these aren't fat dudes serving drinks," he reminded us. "These are hot waitresses."