Birthdays & Gifts

I guess this weekend just happens to be Birthday Weekend. Let's count them:

1) one of my fraternity little brother's birthday was technically yesterday (Friday)

2) my neighbor/clubbing partner-in-crime's birthday is today (Saturday)

3) my roommate's birthday is tomorrow (Sunday)

4) one of my hot guy friends from a neighboring state's birthday is sometime this weekend

5) one of my favorite fraternity brother's REAL brother's birthday is also sometime this weekend

I obviously don't know the actual days of the last two but I could care less when they really are - I just appreciate the fact that they're in town because of it. I just got home from a VERY late birthday dinner (started at 1am) at a Japanese restaurant that serves Teppanyaki which I highly recommend. It's when they cook fried rice, vegetables, and steak/shrimp/chicken/etc. right in front of you in an entertaining manner. My bill alone came to over $100! (I did buy the birthday boy a couple of shots.) I'm positive this is just the beginning of an extremely expensive weekend.

My fraternity brother (the brother of #5) wants to go get a cabana by the pool tomorrow. So does #4. Then #2 has a dinner planned with a table at a club afterwards during the evening. I'm trying to convince #1, #3, and #5 to all go so I don't have to go club-hopping. #3 just wants me to plan a pool party on Sunday. And on top of it all...I haven't bought any gifts for any of them yet! I'm a horrible friend! Which brings me to the subject of gifts. I use several approaches in my selection process of presents. My favorite one, of course, is just basing my decision on what I know the celebrant would want. Other approaches include asking that person's best friend (if they don't happen to be me) or just asking the person directly. I hate that last one, but I sometimes have to resort to it especially if the person doesn't care for random gifts. What do you think? We would all love to have friends that could read our minds and get us exactly what we want, but we know that is always not the case. What do you do then?