What would the correspondents' dinner be without the after-party? It would be not worth it.

This year, there are three big bashes: In addition to the perennially decadent Bloomberg party, Capitol File is hosting a lavish affair at the home of the Colombian ambassador, and Vanity Fair has revived its storied shindig at the home of writer Christopher Hitchens, where a person can be sure to get a proper drink.

We are duly swagged. Capitol File is giving away party bags containing camera memory cards and $50 gift certificates to Lord & Taylor. Bloomberg has staffers passing out slippers, and hot model types in bathrobes giving out single-serve bottles of champagne from a bathtub. No glass, just a straw, which causes the bubbly to foam up and drip all over your hands. Additional swag: light bulbs. Don't know why.

We mosey over to the Capitol File party at the Colombian ambassador's residence, by now quite fuzzyheaded from teeny-weeny drinkie-winkies, and on our way in we catch sight of booted "American Idol" contestant Chris Sligh.

Hey, Chris! What's it like to be temporarily famous?

"Hopefully, it's not temporary," he says politely.

Oopsie-daisy. Awk-ward.

Out on the patio, we find "Grey's Anatomy" star Isaiah Washington smoking a cigar. He says he was really psyched to meet Greta Van Susteren and she was really psyched to meet him, and when they met, they were all: I'm a fan; No, I'm a fan; No, I'm a fan; No, I'm a fan.

"We both didn't know how to, like, act," he says.

Whoa. Two strange worlds collide, and love blossoms, and we are all one. We feel so much better about the state of things. Then a friend interrupts to say they have closed the bar. We are deeply saddened.