Spring Break seems pretty straightforward: Find some friends and a beach, and have yourself the haziest, sleaziest week of your life. But not so fast, beaver-eager. There are some bad people, and badder deals, lurking out there. We spoke to Rocky Berndsen, New York regional manager of STA Travel and frighteningly knowledgeable Spring Break expert, to get the low-down on vacation scams and what not to do on vacation.

Always book your trip with a reputable company. If a deal sounds too good to be true, it probably is. The worst scammers will take your money and disappear without a trace by the time your so-called flight is scheduled to take off. Others will change your flights without telling you, forcing you to return to the airport day after day until they finally feel ready to board the plane. And don't even get us started on those hidden fees (which, Berndsen helpfully points, STA doesn't do).

Be safe. When traveling to foreign countries, don't hang out by yourself at night. First of all, that would be lame. And, second, a lot of popular vacation spots aren't necessarily situated in the safest cities. Local criminals often prey on unsuspecting tourists. That's why they call them 'criminals.'

Purchase travel insurance. In STA's case, a mere $48 covers lost bags, a refund in case you fall deathly ill the day before your flight and hospital expenses (in case you stumble over a balcony while trying to take an upside-down body shot).

Start planning NOW. Most package deals won't sell you a ticket for a specific date. You'll have to be flexible within a few days, and you might not know until a week before your trip whether you're leaving on a Friday or Saturday. If you'd feel more comfortable choosing your own dates (*cough* control freak *cough*) and want to fly on a major airline, you can invest a little more money on a custom package.

Get the extras. Definitely go with the party package if your travel company offers one. For about $100, you get VIP entry (no lines, no fees) to all the best clubs, drink deals every night and entry to a bunch of all-you-can-drink parties. Most companies offer inexpensive three-meals-a-day plan, and they can still make money doing it, because hardly anyone actually eats the slop they're serving. If you really don't care about what you're eating and want to save all your money for drinks, go for it. Otherwise, shell out a little cash for something edible.

During our brief but pleasant conversation, The Daily Show alum breaks down his career in a way that's touching (many shout-outs to the wife) and hilarious. During our talk, we learned a bit about his next roles (he's the voice of 'Hammy' in this summer's Over the Hedge and is working on the sequel to Bruce Almighty), and a little about ourselves, too. Turns out, I'm Jewish!
But enough about me. Here's Steve on.'

His similarities to his pompous character (Michael Scott) on The Office: In real life, I am a wonderful human being. I'm very generous, warm and loving, and a good father. Actually, I'm very down-to-earth. [Former Daily Show co-star] Steve Colbert once described me as 'beige against a tan wall.'

Overexposure: I'll reach my saturation point soon. Actually, aside from pornography, I've done anything that's handed to me. I get sick of me as much as anyone.

Advice for virgins: Keep on truckin'. You know what? After I made The 40-Year-Old Virgin, there were all these virgin Web sites for middle-aged folks that sprung up. I really was surprised!

College life: I kind of liked the way I did college [Denison University]. I saw it as being a kid in a candy store ' I did an equal amount of studying and drugs and sex. I didn't end up thinking I was going to be a comedian; I thought I would go into law. I was filling out my law school application and taking the LSATs, when I realized I wanted to give acting a shot.

On having The Daily Show taught as a class in Berkeley: That sounds like a fun class. What is it, a half credit? When I went to college, there was a Jim Morrison appreciation class for a half credit. It was 10 guys who got high and listened to the Doors. Tearing The Daily Show apart is probably a more valuable thing.

Badlands
This is the classic movie of doomed-lovers-on-the-lam classic, based on the true story of ཮s killer Charles Starkweather. A very young Martin Sheen stars as a James Dean look-alike with a take-no-crap attitude; Sissy Spacek is around to offer unwavering love and jailbait tail.
Love Lesson Learned: Be careful fooling around with those boys from the wrong side of the tracks. If you're father finds out, he'll get real mad and shoot your dog.

The Honeymoon Killers
Chunky nurse Martha falls hard for Latin lothario and lonely-hearts scammer Ray, and together they make a living out of bilking and killing companionless women. Both guys and gals will be blown away by the hold they have on each other.
Love Lesson Learned: This is must-see viewing for couples that met through the Internet or any kind of dating service. Just cancel your membership to Facebook now.

Titanic
For the ladies, there's the romance, the girl-empowerment theme and Leonardo DiCaprio looking cute as a button. For the guys, there's the disaster destruction on an epic scale, Kate Winslet topless and the reassuring fact that Leo dies at the end.

Love Lesson Learned: Time your viewing well. It's such a damn long movie, odds are that your special friend will have to spend the night. And never forget 'A woman's heart is a deep ocean of secrets.' Oh, and 'don't eat beans for dinner.' Um, yeah.

There's Something About Mary
Here's an inspiring story about the lengths a man is willing to go for true love, including near-castration. Plus, the movie has Cameron Diaz. It's a sweet film and absolutely hilarious comedy. It's also beyond politically incorrect.
Love Lesson Learned: In real life, you'd be more than concerned if your girlfriend went out with a NFL legend, but if it's Bret Favre, don't sweat it. The dude's a pussy.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
On one end, there's spectacular kung fu fighting choreographed by the dude who did the action in The Matrix. For the ladies, there's not one, but two love stories! For an action flick, there's more heart in this film than 100 'Hallmark Hall of Fame' TV-movies.
Love Lesson Learned: If you're going to fall in love with a butt-kicking beauty, you'd better have some (martial-arts) moves of your own.

When Harry Met Sally
Here's the ultimate truth, as we paraphrase Billy Crystal: Men and women can't be friends 'cause dudes are dogs who just want to have sex. But, ladies, take heart: You get the sweet revenge of seeing how depressed Billy gets after his marriage falls apart. A great film to fool her into thinking you're more mature than you really are.
Love Lesson Learned: The woman faking an orgasm scene is a tough one to swallow, right guys? Oh, and apparently writers in New York could afford HUGE apartments in the 80s.

Harold and Maude
You've heard of May-December romances. This one is more like February-April of the following year. For the ladies, there's the age-defying passion. For the dudes, there's Harold's Jaguar-hearse, easily one of the coolest pimped-rides ever.
Love Lesson Learned: Never discount funerals as happening places to pick up women.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
It's only THE classic love story of our generation. Kate Winslet stars as a kooky, funky hair-colored bookstore clerk who 'forgets' her wild romance with Jim Carrey. It's sort of sci-fi, but not really. Bonus points for the Kirsten Dunst underwear dance.

Love Lesson Learned: When a partnership hits a rough spot (and sooner or later it will), don't let those bad memories erase the good ones. Literally.

My Bloody Valentine
The town of Valentine Bluffs has a bit of a problem: There's a maniac miner killing the young folk who just want to party on Feb. 14. Plenty of scares and cheesy 80's hairdos for both sexes!
Love Lesson Learned: Product placement rules! All that Canadian beer ('Moosehead lager') must have convinced the locals that it would be a great idea to get crazy down in a dark and dirty mine.

Casablanca
A true romantic classic, and don't be put off just because your (grand)parents love it, too. It's a timeless tale of love and sacrifice during war, and it features more legendary quotes than just about any film out there. However, true story: Humphrey Bogart never actually says 'Play it again, Sam.'
Love Lesson Learned: When Bogey says 'The problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world,' he nails love's epic emotions and ultimate truth.

Tell me if you've had any of these thoughts: Why am I the last virgin standing on my campus? Why can't I hook up like all the other guys? Why do I smell like cheese?

You are not alone, my loveless friend. When I speak at schools, I discover at least two male virgins in every lecture I give. That's cool. But how does a guy go about getting rid of his virginity if he actually wants to ' and with a hot woman, no less?

Mike is one of these guys. He's an 18-year old freshman at William Patterson University and a communications major. As you can see, he's not ugly or weird. He's just not getting what he wants. 'My biggest problem with girls is the fear of rejection,' he says. 'I had to live with this during high school, and it’s still a problem. I always get turned down.'

I can get guys like Mike to the Promised Land, but it takes time and, more importantly, confidence. My first goal with Mike is to teach him to walk tall. With confidence, I guaranteed he would meet a girl in one week. Let's see if I'm good!

Day 1 Assignment: Smile at girls as you pass by. This slows down the mind and avoids any fear of 'conversation' (that's for later!).
Hey, Dave. I noticed a lot of girls are actually quite friendly. When I smiled at them, they actually smiled back. This was fun and pretty easy!

Day 2: Keep up the smile but add a 'Hello' to the mix.
I passed girls on campus today and smiled and said hello. They actually smiled and said hello back! If this is easy, actual conversation has to be easier.

Day 3: Closely observe the Girls You Like. This is opening-line ammo!
I observed several girls. One of them was wearing a white long-sleeve T-shirt, jeans and brown boots and a yellow Yankees cap, and she had all her books in a huge Louis Vuitton bag. Another girl had an interesting necklace with something resembling a “@” symbol, and a girl in my English class has a Motorola phone that you can use as a walkie-talkie.

Day 4: Start flirting! Go up to every girl and observe something about them ' and then start some verbal batting practice.
I had a small conversation with this one girl at the movie theater I work at. I just said 'nice slippers' and we started talking about why women wear socks and sandals together. Kind of fun. I also had a short conversation with this girl in my music class. Her name’s Andrea; she’s an art/photography major and seems sweet.

Day 5: Get some digits!
You’re going to love this. At this Calvin Klein outlet, there was this one really smoking girl named Veronica. She was wearing these really interesting earrings, and had about the deepest blue eyes I’d ever seen. So I was talking to her about her earrings, and finally she offers up this: “Here’s my employee number. I get 45 percent off everything in the store. Just mention me when you go to the register.' She also gave me her IM address!

RESULTS: Five days, three dances, an IM exchange with an older (drinking-age) girl AND a nearly half-off discount at a name-brand store. Is it sex? No. Is it a really good start? You bet.

The focus of the average male's college education is three-fold: 1) Maintain nocturnal hours so as to sleep easily during class. 2) Master the art of beer-pong. 3) Get laid as often as possible.

The third, of course, causes the most trouble (though beer-pong can be tricky, too), especially for those men who aren't, well, traditional studs.

Neil Strauss is one of those men ' or he was, at least. Author of The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists, Strauss is arguably the most unlikely pick-up artist you'd ever meet. He's a self-described 'lump of nerd,' who, true to stereotype, happens to be bald, short and 'so skinny that I look malnourished to most people.'

Strauss ' who has also co-authored the book How to Make Love Like a Porn Star: a Cautionary Tale with porn queen Jenna Jameson ' admits he was 'dateless' in high school, and after deciding to go to Vassar College ('for the male-female ratio'), he still couldn't get a girlfriend. Although he later transferred to Columbia, he graduated to become a journalist ' not exactly the kind of profession that lends itself to hot groupies [Editor's Note: I thoroughly disagree.]. So how is it that, for three years, this nebbish scribe managed to sleep with every woman he wanted to until finally landing the tall blonde guitarist in Courtney Love's band as his girlfriend?

He's managed it because he mastered the science of seduction. And, yes, it is a science, not just a bevy of hackneyed pick-up lines. Strauss trained with the best pick-up gurus in the world, read thousands of pieces of literature and embarked on a two-year, in-depth behavioral study of what women really respond to ' not what they say they respond to.

That Strauss, who works for the New York Times, was victorious in his quest is not so surprising to me ' that's what happens when intelligent, dorky men redirect their efforts from mastering Magic: The Gathering to determining how to snag and shag women most effectively. What is surprising is that so many other men have no idea that they can be just as successful ' despite any number of 'disadvantages' (height, weight, bad fraternity, lazy eye, whatever).

So, because I feel that no guy should be Left Behind [note: if you actually read those Christian books of the same title, you don't deserve sex], I'm going to give you a crib sheet from Neil on how to be a playa. And by 'playa,' I mean a woman-loving stud-a-thon-barely-able-to-rip-the-girls-away-so-you-can-take-a-leak-in-peace. Yeah, that kind of playa.

First and foremost, college men 'need to understand attraction and social dynamics,' says Strauss. 'Often, the things we've been taught and our logic fail us ' attraction can be extremely counter-intuitive.' In other words, stop doing what you've always done. Stop buying the beer, telling her she's attractive and in any way making it obvious you want to sleep with her. Of course you want to sleep with her! She's a female! You're male! You're drunk! She's ' breathing!

The worst thing you can do is to hit on a good-looking woman with the blatant premise that you want sex with her. Attractive college girls are arguably the most desired human beings in the world ' they're so used to men hitting on them, telling them they're hot, buying them drinks, dinner and expensive footwear that it just rolls off their very pretty backs. Except, oddly, for me. Hmmm.

In response, women snub a lot of well-meaning guys when they try to buy them a drink or get their number. But it's not that they're bitches; they just have to be selective because they can't sleep with everyone. So you have to prove to her that you, 'a nobody,' have something she wants. One tip? Give her a backhanded compliment ' 'a neg,' in Strauss terms. Say: 'Nice hair ' is it real?' 'Awesome T-shirt ' did your grandma give it to you?' or 'Do you always wear so much make-up?'

The trick is to make it sound playful while indicating that her boner-inducing beauty doesn't register with you. You want to make her feel a bit uncomfortable and a little insecure, but not angry. After that, she'll be eagerly trying to win you over.

And get over looks ' that is, your own looks. 'Women are more attracted to status,' Strauss argues (and I can tell you, from the perspective of a gorgeous female, he's correct). 'And status isn't about money or fame ' it's a set of behaviors.' Such as'? Although Strauss cautions that you 'need a lot more than a few good moves,' he did emphasize a few highly constructive guidelines.

Don'ts:

' Don't buy her a drink. You shouldn't have to pay for her time.
' Don't hit on her right away. Start a conversation with a fun, entertaining question and make sure you include her friends in the conversation.
' Don't start the conversation with words like 'excuse me' or 'I'm sorry but,' because then you sound like a beggar.
' Don't ignore her friends. If you can win her friends over, you'll win her over.
' Don't hesitate to approach. Follow the three-second rule, which means you have three seconds to go up to her. If you stare too long, not only will she start to think you're a creep, but you'll get nervous and psych yourself out.

Dos:

' Always maintain an attitude that pick-up guru David D'Angelo calls 'cocky/funny.'

' Act as if you're the most attractive guy on campus, but don't take yourself seriously at all. No matter what you look like, constantly accuse women of just using you for your body and treating you like a piece of meat ' even if they're just asking for notes from yesterday's class.
' When you approach a group of women, tell them how long you're going to stay ('not long') ' time constraints ease the awkwardness of meeting strangers. From that point forward, your goal is to display enough personality that they'll want you to stick around, anyway.
' Try to spend as much time as possible in the company of women, so that other women think you have something going on.

All of this works. It's guaranteed.
Although some women may look askance (that means disapproval, college boy) at a book about the methodology that enables nerds to land 10s, I, for one, fully approve of Strauss' strategies. There's nothing wrong with not-quite-male-models finally getting the balls to talk to women they had considered 'out of their league.' It's the playa's Horatio Alger story. Of course, now you have no more excuses for your 'dry-streak' ' get out there!