Academics are totally lame, at least when it comes to admitting their guilty pleasures, says Sean Carroll at Cosmic Variance. The Caltech physicist was condemning some less-than-titillating confessions of various professors in a recent special issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education. For his part, Carroll wrote in the Chronicle about discovering the joys of gambling in Las Vegas, which he thought would be the tamest of the lot. But he professed shock to see the nerdiness of other academics, who rhapsodized about Sudoku, landscape restoration, and opening new textbooks. One comment on the blog pointed out that the academics were simply protecting their careers:

There are plenty of professors who like dressing up in gender-inappropriate undergarments, using cocaine, kabbalah, shooting assault rifles, etc. In fact, I’d be willing to bet that on balance, academics have an above-average level of perversity and general weirdness.

Anonymous commenters on the Chronicle’s Web site did admit to livelier vices, such as vodka, tattoos, and South Park. But the best was an academic version of “My Favorite Things,” including the verse:

Skipping my classes to cruise for young gay dudes Strip clubs and gun running, snorting crushed quaaludes Stealing department chairs’ gold wedding rings These are a few of my favorite things