Drinking enormous amounts of alcohol while not sleeping for days and engaging in sordid physical acts with random strangers makes you better looking. This theory, along with a few questions about America's higher education system, came to me after watching an entire weekend of MTV's Spring Break coverage. A celebration of over-indulgence and under-dressing, Spring Break gathers college kids from around the country in various tropical locales for the primary purpose of getting extremely drunk. This pursuit of alcoholic nirvana mixed with near nudity quickly escalates into a swirling haze of ill-advised sex followed by pounding hangovers and an inexplicable desire to do the whole thing again the next night.

Basically, Spring Break gives the fraternity and sorority crowds a chance to exchange the beer blasts and "meat market" parties of the normal academic year for beer blasts and meat markets in a warmer location. And for those of us unable to attend the festivities, MTV provides wall-to-wall coverage through a series of shows designed to sneak as much naked flesh past the censors as possible.

See women wearing little more than two band-aids and a gum wrapper dancing, singing, or merely standing around while someone prattles on about the latest pop group comprised of four guys whose only talent is the ability to wear matching outfits. Or, maybe you could watch the karaoke show. This offering features shirtless men caterwauling songs for the enjoyment of a crowd filled with women dressed in bathing suits that would make Victoria's Secret models blush.

The karaoke program actually offered a double dose of shakin' booty, as the singing and dancing men learned what song they would get to butcher by selecting a bikini-clad woman. This fine, cultured lady would then lower her bathing suit bottom to reveal a song title written on her butt.

This means that some MTV production assistant came into work that morning to find that his job called for him to clearly and legibly print song names on people's bottoms. Perhaps that's not the worst employment available on the planet, but it's certainly not the most impressive thing you could have on your resume.

The most shocking thing about this 48-hour televised jiggle-thon is that with thousands of students from hundreds of different schools gathered together, MTV still managed to eliminate almost all the ugly people. Sure, you expect that only well-toned, gorgeous people with either rippling pecs or teetering bosoms would star in the shows, but MTV actually managed to find an audience comprised only of these people.

You have to wonder if the music channel's executives posted people at the doors to the show venues in order to screen out undesirables. Perhaps less than beautiful folks "won" tickets to a special concert, or maybe MTV just herded them into a basement and locked the door. I'm not sure of the answer, but given my less-than-rippling abs and somewhat rumpled look, I'm planning on avoiding the tropics next March.