I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, but during the summer people like to gather socially, hang around outside in the nice weather, and drink alcohol.

I know. I just blew your mind.

During the summer it’s not uncommon to get together with groups consisting of friends, family, and people you don’t really like but only invite because you don’t want to be rude. Normally when these shindigs occur, the people attending like to partake in some recreational drinking activities; one of the most popular happens to be beer pong.

If you’ve never played beer pong, then you obviously have a pretty sad social life, but for the sake of being complete in regards to this article, I’ll briefly cut and paste the definition of beer pong from Wikipedia : "Beer Pong is a drinking game in which players throw a ping-pong ball across a table with the intent of landing the ball in one of 10 or 6 cups of beer on the other end. The game typically consists of two two-player teams, one on each side of a table, and a number of cups set up on each side set up in triangle formation.”

Obviously the rules of beer pong vary from house to house, as some party-hosts like to enact their own "house rules", but regardless of the minute details, there is one constant in every game; the use of a table.

Playing beer pong without a table is relatively difficult, because Solo is yet to make cups that hover in the air without the support of a piece of furniture (get on that Solo). The issue with tables, however, is that moving them can sometimes be an arduous task. First you have to find a table you can play on, then you have to figure out a way to move it, and in alot of cases the places you can move the table are limited due to space confinements. On top of that, the entire process of moving and setting up a table can sometimes be alot of work, and everyone knows that manual labor ruins the overall enjoyment of the party.

That's why nobody ever invited Al Boreland to keggers in High School.

I know some of you may think table moving is a minor issue, and you're probably making statements in your head along the lines of, "That's not a big deal, we can just play where the table is already set up". Think about that for a second though. Say you're having friends over on a beautful Saturday afternoon in July. The sun is shining, the grass is green, and girls are dressed in skimpy bikinis they bought at Hollister. In that situation the last thing you want is to have to play beer pong on a dining room table inside the house while all of your friends are outside in the nice warm sun.

In short, if all the partygoers are outside, you want to be outside too, but if the only table you have access to is inside the house, you’re up a creek filled with excrement.

Well, you won’t have that problem any longer, thanks to this ...

This wad of folded blue vinyl is called PortOPong. It’s a product that is supposed to allow you to play beer pong anywhere, because it’s an inflatable beer pong table …

Alright, I'm not gonna' lie, I only posted that pic because I have a thing for attractive women who pose seductively on products that can double as flotation devices; this is a better example of what the PortOPong looks like ...

To be completely descriptive, PortOPong is more than just an "inflatable beer pong table", it's actually the "#1 Selling Inflatable Beer Pong Table In The World", kicking the ass of every other inflatable beer pong table in the high stress inflatable beer pong table industry.

The possible playable features of the PortOPong are pretty vast.

When playing beer pong on a traditional table, you're normally relegated to playing in the traditional "stand at each end of the table" position, and while that's all well and good, PortOPong allows you to do much more than that.

You can inflate the PortOPong and set it on a table, to play the "traditional way" ...

You can inflate the PortOPong and use rope to tie it to the ceiling or low hanging branches ...

You can also inflate the PortOPong and play in the water; an ideal situation for those of you who like to spend your summer afternoons drinking while sitting in a pool ...

You also have the option of simply standing your PortOPong on its side at the beach, because doing so apparently causes bikini clad girls to clamor in front of the camera for an opportunity to get a picture with an inflated piece of vinyl ...

PortOPong is a simple device, because in short it’s a raft ...

Much like the pool accessories you can buy in the summer section of Target or Wal*Mart, PortOPong is a device that you blow up to use. This makes it extremely lightweight, easy to travel with, and the perfect mattress for people who like to sleep on things filled with air ...

What makes PortOPong different than the rafts you’re used to lounging out on during the summer is the cup holes on each side. As you can probably tell, those holes are meant to hold plastic cups, thus allowing you to play beer pong in any situation you see fit.

They could also be used as a sexual pleasure device for perverted guys you hang around with, but I’m pretty sure the folks at PortOPong don’t recommend that particular usage of their product.

The PortOPong comes in several different colors (blue, pink, white, and green), thus allowing you to color coordinate your beer pong game with the clothing choices of your guests. The color I currently own is blue, not so much because I have a fondness for the color of Cookie Monster, but moreso because that’s the color that the makers of the product sent me, and I don’t complain about the color of stuff I receive for free.

PortOPong sells on the company’s official website for $49.99. Each set comes with rope (which allows you to hang the PortOPong from a ceiling or trees), as well as repair patches, grommets, and an instruction manual; perfect for the retarded friend who can’t figure out how to use a raft.

Personally, I think PortOPong is a good value for the price. Speaking for myself, I go to a lot of concerts and other events during the summer where beer pong is played, and in the past we’ve been forced to playing on small card tables or crappy pieces of plywood wedged on top of two beach chairs; with this type of device, I’ll no longer need to use such archaic methods to get drunk and throw ping pong balls, as this little gizmo will come in handy when I’m looking to get people together for spontaneous games.

It’ll also save my life in the event I trip and fall in a river, which is never a bad feature for a product to have.