Remember: Just because it’s cute, and it was free, that doesn’t mean you really want it.

A new report from Greenpeace alleges that cloud computing and internet use are sucking up energy and spilling CO2 into the atmosphere, with an impact greater than that of Russia. Here’s the story.

This is not the first time I’ve been accused of emitting toxic language, and it certainly won’t be the last.  But are those of us on the internet really doing worse than our predecessors (or younger selves), who relied on printing and mailing, or processing photographs with chemicals, or driving around to do shopping, or physically attending events? Isn’t it better to be sitting online doing these things rather than crawling around in traffic? Or should we all just hang ourselves?

Two or three times a year, I get called upon to judge theatre competitions of varying sorts. This year, I’m one of the readers for the PEN USA literary awards, which is always an honor. And this Saturday evening, I’m a judge of this playwriting and performance event at the Secret Rose Theatre. It sounds like a lot of fun. If you’re around, stop by.

I have mixed feelings about contests, awards, and prizes. In grad school, one of my playwriting professors, Jerome Lawrence,  told me he was against writing contests because it pitted writers against writers. I understood his point of view (and that’s an indication of just what sort of a guy Jerry was:  generous beyond measure), especially as someone who at that time had already been on both sides of prize-winning — winning one when I wasn’t sure my play was the best, and losing the same contest the next year when I was sure mine was. Especially when there’s a performance element in judging  a playwriting contest, a lot rides on elements outside the playwright’s control:  How responsive was the audience on the judging night, how “on” were the performers, was it too cold or too hot in the theatre, how was traffic on the way there, was the box office friendly or surly, and so forth.

At the same time, believe me when I say I understand the marketing value of winning any contest or award (and, sometimes, the prize value). I don’t care which movies have won which awards, believe me (especially when  it’s a system that awards “Best Picture” to “Avatar”). But do awards build careers, and would I put the full thrust of marketing and PR behind any awards won? You bet.

There is a story — and I don’t know how reliable it is — that, 40 years ago, the Nobel committee was deadlocked between giving the award for literature to either Samuel Beckett or Eugene Ionesco. Finally, after much deliberation, one of the Ionesco champions who felt that Ionesco’s work had a broader scope than Beckett’s (and there may be something to that), switched sides to end the deadlock. And so:  Samuel Beckett won the Nobel, and Eugene Ionesco never did. Is the work of Beckett, the Nobel-prize-winning writer, better than that of Ionesco? Beckett has become far more deeply rooted in the cultural consciousness — referenced in “The Simpsons,” name-checked on “Quantum Leap,” parodied on Sesame Street — and a lot of that came from winning the Nobel.

Curious about the religious inclinations of comic-book characters? Wondering who shares your worship? This site helps demystify who belongs to which church. In retrospect, it makes sense that Two-Face, as someone obsessed with duality, is a Taoist, but I can’t quite reconcile the Hulk as a lapsed Catholic. (By now, he must have a lot of guilt to carry around.)

As I tell my daughter: Don’t, like, add qualifiers like, um, like, and don’t end declarative sentences with question marks?

I know:  Like me, you’ve been thinking for years just how useful it would be to have a handy wall chart showing how various super powers and characters are related, something akin to a periodic chart of the elements for comics, or the system Darwin et al used so well in cataloging and referencing the biological kingdom. You’re in luck. Here it is, and you can order a copy for your ongoing reference. I know I will.

An aside:  In browsing it online, I couldn’t help noting  the relative dearth of performance-arts-based super characters — just Mysterio, Chameleon, and Puppet Master — and all of those are villains, and they’re all lame. (It comes as no surprise that two of them are Spider-Man villains.) With so few performing-arts characters, there’s definitely a market opening for a guy like me. Mentally, I’m already outfitting the hidden  costume and gadget shop.

(Thanks to Doug Hackney for letting me know about this.)

On Thursday night, a friend and I caught Big Audio Dynamite at the Roxy, prior to their performance at Coachella. The Roxy is an ideal music venue: a small dark club stuffed with people drinking beer. Someone very helpfully recorded and uploaded this video of the band playing their #1 hit from back in the day, “Rush.” I will never get to see the Clash (Joe Strummer died 10 years ago), but I did get to see Mick Jones’ other band. And they were great.

I was in Las Vegas for a few days, staying at the brand-spanking-new Cosmopolitan hotel. Here’s a photo of me hard at work in the Queue Bar on the casino floor. Do not be fooled by the photo — I promise you, I am plotting our future with my business partner, and the the drinks and the cigar and the video gambling are brainstorming devices. I highly recommend this bar, by the way, because we hit it every day we were there, and one way or another, they found ways to not charge us for the $14 drinks. And Las Vegas is one of the few remaining civilized places where one can get a drink because, again, please note:  cigar. Most other places one is asked to huddle outdoors like a night watchman. We so thoroughly enjoyed ourselves the afternoon that this photo was taken that we blew off dinner for more drinks, almost missed our plane, and over-tipped the town car driver.

Two nights before we actually did get something to eat, but given that we’d already been to a catered business reception (and there were three more the following night), we didn’t quite sit down for a dinner meal. What we really wanted were oysters. So we dropped into Sage at the Atria, the other, conjoined, new casino in Las Vegas.  Here’s what I had:

A rabbit amouse bouche. (My partner asked, “What are the little crunchy parts?” I said: “The bones.”

Oysters with red peppers in tequila with garlic.

Smith’s Nut Brown Ale, from England.

Panna cotta with mixed berries, strawberry champagne soup and black pepper meringues.

Caramel chocolate soup.

I anticipate that the jaded among you might look at these photos and say, for instance, “That just looks like hot chocolate.”  But no, it is caramel chocolate soup. It’s soup. And those aren’t just berries in a bowl with a shortcake substitute. No. That is a panna cotta with mixed berries, strawberry champagne soup and black pepper meringues. If you note nothing else, note the soup. My dining companion thought some of these admixtures, such as the tequila with the oysters, exotic. But really, no more exotic than some of what I grew up eating:  turtles, rattlesnakes, and eels. (And some of it in the form of soup.)

While in Las Vegas, I was also invited to take a tour of Zappos. I’ve never ordered from Zappos, but you may have. Many people do, because they average $12,000,000 to $16,000,000 in sales every day. Here’s what the nerve center of Zappas looks like (and before you look, I pledge to you, these are actual photos of the interior of a multi-billion-dollar operation).

I know. It looks like what’s left over after a three-day neighborhood rummage sale. Zappos’ culture insists on relentless hilarity. Fun, fun, fun is the order of the day, but the relentless “fun” to me seemed like hive mentality:  “You WILL sing/honk/dance when you hear the bell/whistle/horn.” I was there for about an hour and it was like trying to think straight while you’re in a pinball machine. See the woman in the lower right? See how her attitude seems to scream out, “I’m trying to focus here”? I kept thinking, “If I worked here, I’d have to leave the building to get anything done.” Hey — it must be working great for them. But sometimes some of us need four walls and a door we can close.

Finally, I wanted to mention that I got to see another Cirque du Soleil show while I was there:  “O.” While I wished there were more story — or, even, any story, one that explained the various costumes and characters I was getting teased with, without my having to buy the program to learn what that story was — the feats of acrobatics, strength and diving were awe-inspiring. The tickets were $185 each, a price I might have been willing to entertain except we’re getting ready to make a very very large purchase. But then someone at one of the receptions offered us a ticket (he had two and needed only one), and then someone at the Bellagio will-call had an extra he was selling for only $140, so we saw the show for just $70 each and, as luck would have it, both of our seats were in the same row and close together — and those seats were fifth row center. Pretty amazing seats for a pretty spectacular show, one where three people dive simultaneously from a three-story height into what had just a minute before been a sealed floor and is now a pool of water you didn’t realize was deep enough to catch them. Well worth seeing.

Forget U2  and whatever they’re on about. Here’s an anthem that I personally know some of you would like to learn and sing, courtesy of my friends The Ultramods.

A true shocker in the world of comic books:  Steve Rogers is returning as Captain America. And — coincidentally — just before the “Captain America” movie comes out, too. Never saw that coming.