Boys Gone Wild

Brad and I sat out the first round and studied the other teams' strategies. A skinny guy named Thomas chanted obscenities as Mitch, who was approximately the size of a flatbed truck, released the ball into a high arc and -- splish -- sank it.

Thomas chugged the cup, shook himself loose, soaked the ball in the wash cup and prepared to retaliate. All he had to do was ignore the massive, hairy butt that now provided the heinous backdrop to his target. "None of you [gentlemen] are drinking my Grey Goose!" Mitch shouted, spanking himself.

I looked away. Our turn was up. We knew our distraction technique paled compared with what we had just witnessed. But we took off our shirts anyway to reveal "St. Chris" and "St. Brad" tattooed in Sharpie pen across our pasty chests. Our opponents, a team called Pretty Good, stared blankly. Then, "Ha, I get it, apostles . . . funny." They proceeded to crucify us, only with Ping-Pong balls.

The champions, a pair from Tennessee, handled their victory with poise. Not once had their zippers come undone. That night they nursed a tall bottle of top-shelf vodka in the VIP section of Studio 54, while acrobat dancers dangled from the ceiling. Beyond our means.

Day 4: Oops! We Did It Again

Having failed to dominate in Beer Pong, we dedicated our last day to what we do best: eating. The Las Vegas Club, a casino across the street from the Plaza, offers a nine-pound burger free to anyone who can consume it in 24 hours. The competitive eater Sonya Thomas, aka the Black Widow, supposedly downed it in 48 minutes. She's a 105-pound woman. We're four healthy men. At least we were before we ingested an entire cow.

"We'll have the burger," we said as the waiter approached our booth. His face darkened. He knew the burger of which we spoke.

He returned 30 minutes later carrying the platter on his shoulder -- 40 pounds in all, including fries -- and sliced the foot-long burger into eighths, like a pizza. We each took one.

Patrons slowed as they passed our table, like drivers eyeing an accident. "I've never seen anything like that before," said a graying passerby. Halfway into the slice, I started to feel hot. Morgan Spurlock would have been weeping into his bun right now. "I'm in pain," Chi said. When I looked up again, he had his face in his hands and was breathing heavily.

When the bill came, half of the $50 burger remained uneaten.

On the short but slow walk back to the hotel, I questioned the logic of our consumption. We ate the burger . . . because it was a challenge? Because it tasted good? To say we did it? Certainly not because of hunger.

"It's Vegas," Brad said. "Never ask why."

Back in the room, I lay down on the bed and listened to my heart. Each beat was a pleasant surprise. Our recovery period lasted 45 minutes before we threw on clothes and piled into the banana-wagon.