By: jackie.sauter

To those of you who cringe at the holidays’ blinding consumption of precious energy, you’ll be glad to hear that the 100 year-old Times Square ball is celebrating its centennial by going green.

Almost 10,000 energy-efficient replacement bulbs will use only about 10 toasters’ worth of electricity – and they are twice as bright as the previous lights.

And that’s not all: in the spirit of collaborative content, this year you can submit a wish to a Web site and have it printed on the multicolored confetti that is released at midnight.

Maybe Marylanders will ask that the jump in sales tax scheduled for Tuesday will magically disappear?

JACKIE SAUTER, Multimedia Editor