I have two serious addictions.

One makes me a super geek and rather sad. The other is really serious, so much so, my husband, when he hears the sound affects, will either mimic the sound or declare he's going to call my family and friends to participate in an intervention.

One addiction is my friend Ken's fault. The other, my own doing.

One addiction causes me to interact with random people whom I don't know. And sometimes those that I do, but usually not. The other, I'm a complete loner - and I like it that way.

Hi, my name is Janine and I'm a Superheroes-aholic and a Staries-aholic.

To explain myself. While I don't seek out competition, and generally don't care to compete, I do like to be the best at whatever I am doing, and, like the rabid gamer I'm turning out to be, I have to get all the super powers I can. Which means I have to target random people who have the super powers I need. Some days are better than others, but I'm getting there. My other goeal it to get a score in Staries at least in the 20K's.

So what does this mean? I play Superheroes all the freaking time. I'm constantly searching for people online who have powers I need and attacking them. I don't really care about the fun of it anymore (and it is fun because each power has a funny attack description, like turning someone's mom's tea to alcohol so his/her mom gets drunk). I just want the powers. I must gain all the powers.

So you'd think, me being me and liking to be goofy and whatnot, I would have come up with a fab-u-lous superhero name. Nope. I'm dumb and first picked Joe Bloggs (don't ask), and then picked Sizzle. My Superhero picture? Cousin Ben - you remember him, he went to Montreal with my husband and I and mini baking Mateo. So yeah. I've never been one for superheroes or comics, so I really don't know what to call myself, and that's not really the point, now is it?

I came across Staries a month ago. It's your basic video game - match up the same colored stars in rows of three or more by shifting rows left, right, up, down. At about level 4, certain stars get locked so you can't move the row until you somehow get the same color stars moved to the locked star. It's not not really complicated. I play this endlessly.

My goal? To get on the leader board. Why? Because I can.

I don't play this all the time because once you start a game, you really can't stop. So it doesn't work so well at work or when I'm watching Mateo. I usually wait until Mateo is asleep and then I'll play game after game after game. My husband will call me to come look at something, and I'll refuse. Because my stars will get locked. And. I. Can't. Have. That.

As stars are eliminated, the game makes a "zzziiing!" noise. This is also the notification to my husband that I'm playing Staries, and unless the building is on fire, I'm not moving.

So yes, I'm an addict. I'm pathetic. I'm a geek. I like my games.

Until I achieve super stardom and then I'll move on.

Ah, good times. And yes, watch this, don't just roll your eyes at me.

Since I'm now hooked on these darn video podcasts because of my xmas present (iTouch video iPod), I'm always looking for really funny things to watch on my way to work and back. (Books? What are those? Eyes are for watching video podcasts, not reading. Pishshaw!)

This is one that made me laugh out loud on BART, something that is always fun to do because it's already weird enough that I'm staring at a little box that I periodically tap at, let alone laugh and smile while my eyes glitter with glee.



This video gave me even more school flashbacks (I know, I know, I said I'd write things about my past men (more of a joking statement than you'll ever realize), and about kid TV shows - and I will! I shall. I will.), especially all the journals I kept where I basically bemoaned my existance or complained about boyfriends. I still have them. They're packed away. I'm too afraid to read them because I really don't want to come to that realization of how silly I was as a teenager. I likened myself to dark and brooding -- the creative type people just didn't understand. I'm still dark and I still brood and I'm still creative and people still don't understand me, but my attitude about it all has taken a serious 180 turn (partially thanks to meds, thanks meds!).

Anyhoo. I hope you watch it. You. And you know who you are.

When the internet makes you lose your anonymity.

I've signed up to a million of those "find your old friends" sites, like classmates.com, reunion.com, myspace.com, some others I can't remember; more to spy on what high school friends are up to now and to see if I could find a few people that have dropped out of my life that I would like to talk to again. With all the new fun technology and an open wallet, one now can easily figure out who is searching for them or looking at his/her profile on theses sites (not all of them, mind you, but a good chunk).

So when I got an email from reunion.com saying so and so recently signed up as an alumni for my high school class, I immediately went to this person's page and took a look. Note -- I never went and searched for this person; it was reunion.com that told me about this person. And I'm sorry, curiosity killed the cat, and I always have to look if you're going to email me.

I went and looked, and the person didn't really have anything up that was interesting and then I disappeared back into the depths of cyber land, hoping never to be seen again. A few hours later, that person mysteriously added me as a contact. Upon further investigation, if you pay a few bucks a month, you too could know who is searching for you and looking at your profile page. And if you add up all the dollars you could spend on these sites just to find out who is looking at your profile, you'd be forking out about 10 bucks a month or more. And for what? This I'm still not sure about.

So now that I'm this person's contact, I get emailed all the time about how so and so has put up new pictures (which, yes, I promptly go and look at), and that so and so has written a new blog entry (you have to pay to read it, which I still say is crossing the line -- that whole paying thing).

The kicker to all this is that I don't remember even saying two words to this person while in high school, although I know I did talk to his now wife every so often, and I'm pretty certain it is his wife who is updating his profile and not actually him, and even more so, I'd be surprised if this guy could put a few words together to make one cohesive sentence, but since I would have to pay to read his blog entry, I'll never know.

So now I'm my high school's football hunk's newest contact. And when I looked at his pictures, the shiver shakes hit me hard because he's looking more and more like a psycho killer Al Bundy than a high school hunk. And then I think how we've never really talked, and that here I am, 15 years later, looking at his personal pictures and wondering who is the sadder of the two?