I heart Tony

Hello. My name is Lucy, and I'm a Sopranoaholic.

No more than a couple of months ago, I hadn't seen an episode. I was blissfully ignorant of who got whacked and if Tony and Carmella were still together.

I wasn't one of those people who talked about the show and looked into the deeper meaning for plot points.

I also didn't have HBO. Friends recorded the shows I did watch ("Sex and the City" and "Entourage") for me. That was it.

So how did I become a Sopranoaholic? How did this turn into an obsession, an addiction?

It started in January when I had to stay at home and recover from surgery for six weeks. My mom came to stay with me and brought her Netflix. Among her movies was disc two from Season One of the "The Sopranos." I never watched the show, so she figured she'd watch a few when I napped.

Then it happened.

I watched an episode. Then another. Then another.

And then I knew the theme song by heart. (It got to the point where my mom would fast forward through it just so she wouldn't hear me sing. I could hear it only once per DVD, that was the compromise.)

I knew the characters' names; I knew the actors who played them. I could point out the Shore, and I knew places they talked about. I knew the backstory. I checked online for more information, for anything related to the show.

And then it happened. I went from being hooked on the show ... to obsessed.

When did I reach that point?

The Season Four disc three was bad. It wouldn't play. It was cracked. I was heartbroken. I couldn't stop, not at that moment. There were more disks to watch. I couldn't skip those episodes and return to them later.

So I called Blockbuster. They had it. They had the Holy Grail. But I didn't have a membership; my mom left hers in Texas. So there it was. I opened a membership just to get one disc of the show instead of waiting the two days to get the replacement from Netflix.

I knew I was an addict at that moment. That and when I decided to take "The Sopranos" tour and see all the places from the show.

So kids, I ended up watching five seasons in five weeks.

Now, with the new season. I have a bigger challenge. No HBO ...

On the iPod: Madonna -- "Confessions on a dance floor"