We were halfway through the party, which was meant to be devoted to drinking, joking, and booksellin', when suddenly a brand new Alli Reed emerged. No longer was she the bright, young, witty writer we'd known from the Internet, but a sassy preteen, hellbent on turning our party into a sleepover.

"Let's play truth or dare," she giggled, suddenly wearing big, pink, fuzzy slippers.

"We're here to drink and sell books, Alli," I said, setting up a group of shots.

"UGH!" she exclaimed. "Who do you think is the cutest boy in movies? When I grow up, I'm gonna marry Devon Sawa!!!"

Nick tried to appease Alli with some fingernail painting and gossiping about boys, but you could tell his heart wasn't in it. Alli ultimately left early to write "Alli Sawa" in her spiral notebook 600 times while grooving to 98 Degrees.

Sometimes the 11-year-old inside you is only a few drinks away.

Anyway, that's because alcohol affects the part of your brain called the cerebellum, which controls muscle movement. Muscle movements start as signals in the cerebral cortex but pass the medulla, where they are influenced by nerve impulses from the cerebellum. And when you're drunk, it's a bad influence. So whereas your body might be trying to send a signal that says "Put the potato salad down gently and enjoy the party," your drunk-ass cerebellum is whispering "Psst, that table is actually one foot lower and made of goo," leading your muscles to compensate accordingly -- and incorrectly. Booze makes you spazzy.

Gladstone: The Breakstuffer

Well, I may have the ability to grow a rich, luxurious beard, but alcohol affects me just like any other man. And if I drink enough, pretty soon I'll break something. Most likely your heart, because I'm dreamy, baby, but also real stuff. For example, during the night, I was truly touched that Brendan, Nick, and Alli bought me some engraved whiskey stones that spelled out "Gladstone." So touched, in fact, that I attempted to balance four stones spelling "GLAD" on top of five stones spelling "STONE." And here's the fun thing. I didn't. Here's the moment the "D" somehow fell off my drunken palm before cracking on the table:

Drunk enough to break a stone.

"That's not a true story," you say. "You can't break a stone." Maybe you're right, but my question is this: "Why weren't you skeptical about the Alli story above?"

When the webcam portion of the night was over, we all agreed that further drinks and food were in order. (Except for Alli, who wanted to stay up watching the 1995 version of Casper over and over.) But where to go? To me, the answer was simple: the closest place with alcohol-absorbing carbs. To Nick, the answer was simple: the closest place with alcohol-absorbing carbs. Brian and Alli were also in favor of alcohol-absorbing carbs. But Brendan? No. It seems Mr. McGinley had read something disparaging about the way the closest carb-purveying establishment treated its staff, and he wasn't having it.

The face of a man simply not having it.

Yes, we managed to get Brendan into the pub that we'll call "CJ Hooligan's" (because I don't want to be sued), but we couldn't keep him down. He was demanding to see the owner, picketing up and down the bar, and eating french fries. The man was unstoppable.

Simply unstoppable.

And I bet no one's confused why puking occurs. Think back to that first week of college. What was the diagnosis on that kid who had to be hospitalized after his very first party? Yes, alcohol poisoning. Why? Because basically alcohol is poison, and this Askville page actually does a decent job of explaining that. (What I love about that link, however, is not the answer, but the moronic questioner who is only interested in the biochemical reasons for puking alcohol when not mixing drinks because puking from mixing needs no biochemical explanation because it's "logical" -- y'know, the way humans always logically puke if they drink both Coke and Pepsi.)

Nick: The Puker

My buddy Nick is from England, and English people, much like normal Americans, also have stomachs. I'd like to tell you a humiliating story about how Nick puked in a public place that night and destroyed the restroom of a swank restaurant, but I can't. We didn't go to a swank restaurant. We went to that Irish pub, CJ Hooligan's, and after three more beers and three more bowls of potato salad, Nick puked up his British guts, consistent with England's tradition of messing with the Irish. Some say this story isn't true. (Nick.) Some say it was someone else who created an awful mess for those CJ Hooligan's workers he seemed to care about so dearly only moments earlier to clean up. But, y'know, sometimes booze can affect your memory too.