Janet and I got a subscription to the Best of Broadway series this year, and the first show of the series was Evita, which we saw Thursday night.

I wasn't really keen on seeing this show. I love musicals, but I just don't like Andrew Lloyd Webber's stuff. Phantom of the Opera makes me gag, and I really don't like Cats… so I wasn't looking forward to watching a two-and-a-half hour Webber snooze fest.

However, the show really impressed me. The staging, choreography was absolutely amazing. The acting was great (aside from the woman playing Evita, who was a little stiff&#41… and the male lead (playing the role of Che&#41 was outstanding. When the intermission hit, Janet and I were anxiously waiting for the second act.

But as most musicals go… the second act was choppy and rushed (though there were some great moments in the staging of the second act&#41… and what some people might have called an ending was absolutely atrocious.

My overall opinion is that the new staging of Evita is very good, and has the chance of winning some awards if it makes it to Broadway. Still, I have three reservations with this production:
1&#41 The music was by Andrew Lloyd Webber
2&#41 The lyrics are by Tim Rice
3&#41 The story is about Eva Peron
If they could just take care these three things, I would list this as one of my absolute favorite shows of all time.

Egad! Avery stole my Smirk! Since it was my birthday, we decided that we should go for sushi since we haven't in quite a while, mostly because we can't seem to find a place that has a selection of fish that is varied as well as exceptionally fresh. Well, there is Ebisu, but it always has a two-hour wait, and there are those few scattered hole-in-the-wall places that seat, like, eight people total, and there's Blowfish, which although it has ultra-modern space-age decor, a sake bar and shows cool anime videos on movie screens placed strategically around the restaurant, it has some weird, untraditional vibes; like even though you may choose to sit at the sushi bar, a waiter will still come over to take your order, and they serve their sake in clear glass decanters (which look like small flower vases&#41 and clear shot glass-type glasses which isn't conducive to keeping the hot sake actually hot at all. Not only that, you're literally elbow-to-elbow with the rest of the patrons, their sushi is only so-so, and the place gets packed/over-run/SRO with caucasian yuppies getting drunk on sake by 9:00 PM.

But Kabuto…Kabuto! It is heaven on earth. HUGE selection of fish. FRESH fish. Melt-in-your mouth fish. We ate practically everything on the nigiri menu, and even ventured onto the vegetarian side of the menu board after we had exhausted the seafood options. (an important aside: Kabuto is the only sushi bar I've ever sat at that has been kind enough to provide a real chopstick rest, and it's this and other little attention-to-detail touches — like when the waitress told me to watch out for the little dip in the floor beneath the carpeting under my feet and then apologized: "This restaurant is so old!" —  that change a good experience into a great one.&#41 After nearly three hours, we left with the best, happiest, most peaceful sushi buzz ever!