It's been a excruciatingly long 11 months for Sue Sadik, a New Jersey deliverywoman and aficionada of the hugely popular HBO series "The Sopranos."

Of course, watching taped episodes of the show's first two seasons has taken some of the edge off. And hanging around location shoots in North Jersey with a telephoto lens and notepad, posting her findings on Sopranoland.com, has gone a long way toward filling the enormous absence between seasons.

Still, "it's been a horrible year," she said, especially after HBO pushed the beginning of its third season back two months. The suffering ends tonight at 9, as the strangely familiar yet uniquely messed-up families of North Jersey mobsters return in back-to-back episodes.

There was a time the madding crowds lined the docks of New York, desperately waiting for the latest installments of Charles Dickens' serialized novels. But now, the throngs will gather at places like Mae's Pub in Clifton, N.J., or at Tom Costantino's and Patti Schickram's upper West Side apartment in Manhattan to find out what's become of mob boss Tony Soprano (who, last we saw, was getting messages from a talking fish).

Even casual fans know that Nancy Marchand, the actress who played Tony's treacherous mother, Livia, died in June of lung cancer. What they don't know is how the creators of the show will deal with her death -- and how it will affect the delicate psyche of the lovable-yet-murderous son Livia once tried to have whacked.

"It's a complicated show," says Schickram, a public relations consultant who grew up in Essex County, where much of the show is filmed. And if you're one of the lucky few invited to her season premiere pasta party, you should know there's one house rule: No questions till the end.

The Costantinos, along with a lot of other fans, take their goombahs very seriously -- and for good psychological reason. "I kind of grew up with these guys," said Tom Constantino, a television producer and editor from Bay Ridge. "Everyone on the show seems to resemble someone I know. James Gandolfini (Tony Soprano) even looks like my father. My Aunt Gilda -- she'd put the Sicilian curse on me from heaven if she heard me say this -- looks like Livia. So it's a perversely comforting feeling watching the show."

That feeling has also made fans fiercely protective of the show and its characters. Gabe Sica of Manhattan found that out last season, when he happened to mention in an online chat group that Tony's daughter, Meadow (actress Jamie-Lynn Sigler) maybe had been eating a few too many cannoli. For that, Sica was frozen out by other Web fans -- he was called a "no-taste moron" and received "threats" for his heretical views -- but not before he got to know a woman in St. Louis who shared his reservations about the show's second season and has asked him to come live with her.

Ivy Hover, a Las Vegas Web designer who created Sopranoland.com, says that until the show's creator, David Chase, began offering criticism of his own, Soprano devotees were wary of saying anything negative about the show. But above all else, being a "Sopranos" fan is all about feeling connected to one another, and any misgivings are vented with loyalty otherwise reserved for their own families.

"I was never a big Mafia movie fan," said Hover. "When the show first started, I thought, 'Oh, God -- another 'Godfather'-esque ripoff. Can't they come up with anything new?' And then I watched it, and I was like, 'Oh, wow! This is about normal families going through the same problems that everyone goes through.'"

So tonight, in living rooms and bars and online chat rooms, millions of people like Hover and her friend Sue Sadik will be creating some of that same family feeling -- among comfortably obsessive friends.

Imagine going a year without the ones you love.

That's been the case for millions of "Sopranos" fans who have had to go cold prosciutto since the last episode in April.

Not to worry. Soprano Sue feels your pain.

The 40-year-old life-long New Jersey resident has been quietly stalking the cast and crew of the HBO mob hit show as they film around the state, posting her photos and story tidbits on Sopranoland.com for every Soprano addict to share.

"I am their fix," said Sue Sadik, speaking of fans like herself who are trying to hold on as best they can until the third season begins in March 2001. "Wanna-be Jerseyites can't go around being at all these locations, so I do it."

In one of her Web site postings, Soprano Sue has color photos of the cast dressed in black at Cozzarelli Memorial Home in Belleville, N.J., and then assembled at a Jersey City cemetery with five stretch limos parked outside the gate.

The characters are attending what appears to be Livia Soprano's funeral -- a natural to kick-off the first episode of the upcoming third season, aficionados say, because Nancy Marchand -- the actress who played Tony's toxic mother -- died of cancer in the off season. "I'm gonna get buried there when I die," said Sadik, straight-faced.

In her real life, Sadik runs a small delivery business. She said she got hooked while watching the opening credits of the show and realizing she knew all the places.

She E-mailed Sopranoland's Webmistress and started filing photos and tidbits faithfully. Thus was born Soprano Sue.

"I hear from her every few days," said Ivy Hover, Sopranoland's Web site designer in Las Vegas. "She's obsessed, but she's very nice.

"The site gets about 3,000 visitors a day, with about 1/3 of them visiting one of her pages," Hover added. "Sue is definitely helping to fill a void."

Asked whether she has an inside source on the set or how she gets her tips, Sadik said: "I was a private eye in New Jersey for five years. I can find out anything."

Sadik said her phone rings as early as 6 a.m. with tips from more than the dozen people who call her with Soprano sightings.

"I got somebody who lives on the third floor across the street from Satriale's Pork store," said Sadik, referring to the popular hangout where the Soprano crew often meets. "I know when a fly goes through the parking lot."

Sadik also has her own crew, which functions as her eyes and ears for locations and sightings. The "Kearny crew" as she calls them, consists of Cathy Dribneck, a Jersey cab driver, and Karen DeMaio, a dispatcher, who both admit having a crush on Paulie Walnuts.

"My bathroom window faces Satriale's Pork store," said DeMaio. "I don't miss nothin.'" Careful not to offend the show's director, David Chase, who wants to keep the intricate plot line a secret, Sadik walks a respectful line and does not share all that she sees. She'll often check with someone on the set to see if posting something on the Web site is okay with them.

Pressed for the inside scoop on Season 3, Soprano Sue has taken the oath of omerta. "It's gonna be good," she said, being coy. "You're gonna have a lot of surprises, like a very famous person is gonna be in it. And Tony is going to have lots of problems." Yeah, sure. We already knew that.

What else ya got?

"We've been told that Christopher gets 'made,'" said Sadik's field partner and autograph hound Jeff Ceterko. "But we can't swear to it."

Sadik was particularly proud of the photo she got posing with Tony himself.

"That was just last week," she gushed. "Tony has always been too busy to bother. If they are busy, I do not bother them. They are there to do a job, ya know what I'm saying? I'm not there to interrupt them or be pesky."

Worried about making it all the way till next March without a new "Sopranos" fix?

Just log on to the SopranoLand Web site, where one devoted fan, Sue Sadik, has been posting photos she takes while doggedly tracking the show as it shoots around New Jersey.

Soprano Sue, as she calls herself, insists that she doesn't work for HBO, which produces the hit series that stars Edie Falco and James Gandolfini.

"It would be nice if they paid me," says the small-business owner, with a laugh. "The thought has crossed my mind."

She has posted photos of what looks suspiciously like a funeral for Olivia Soprano, Tony's mother, who was played by the late Nancy Marchand.

She even posted an account of a problematic Thai dinner order during a recent Montclair shoot. The crew ordered dinner for 100, requesting delivery in 25 minutes.

"Well, hours later, the food finally arrives," Soprano Sue reports. Here's hoping the delivery boy isn't sleeping with the fishes.

"The Sopranos" caused another mob scene yesterday.

Production crews took over a once-notorious Lodi, N.J., go-go bar for the filming of an episode of the hit HBO mob drama--and the best seats in the house belonged to motorists driving on heavily trafficked Route 17.

"The Sopranos" set crews worked their magic to transform the Satin Dolls bar into the Bada Bing, the strip bar featured in the TV series.

James Gandolfini stars as family man Tony Soprano on the hit HBO series.

There was lead actor James Gandolfini, playing a disheveled Tony Soprano, suddenly staggering out a side door. Cameras continued to roll as Tony, leaning to-and-fro, stepped into the unpaved parking lot. Seconds later, a long-legged cutie followed him out.

The show's highly secretive production crew refused to discuss the scene, but it hardly mattered to the commuter buses and drivers who snarled traffic as they slowed down and strained for a glimpse.

Get used to it, says Sue Sadik, who runs Sopranoland.com, one of about 30 Web sites that chart the series' every move.

"They started filming in August at a Belleville, N.J., funeral home," Sadik explained as she and a friend watched the filming from the perimeter of the parking lot. "I heard they really tied up Route 46 when they filmed in Totowa."

The Satin Dolls Club in Lodi, N.J. serves as the set for the show's Bada Bing strip bar.

"The Sopranos," regarded with civic pride in the Garden State, follows the midlife angst of Gandolfini's character, a second-banana Jersey gangster. For two seasons, viewers have watched as Tony Soprano struggles between his dysfunctional suburban family and his dying mob family.

This year, as the series moves into its third season, fan clubs are trying to determine the show's mysterious "new guy." Heads roll frequently in the series and Salvatore (Big Pussy) Bompensiero (played by Vincent Pastore), a mob informant, was whacked in last season's finale.

"We don't like to ask too many questions," said a deadly serious Sadik. "We don't want to end up sleeping with the fishes."

One of last season's new stars, Furio Giunte (Frederico Castelluccio), a ponytailed hit man imported from Italy, was the big man on campus yesterday--toiling on the set for close to 12 hours, spies said.

For yesterday's filming, nearby businesses willingly opened up their parking lots to the production staff's cars and vans. At the Party Box next door, a sign proclaimed a scene was filmed there on Feb. 6, 2000.

Perhaps the toughest job belongs to Michael Hernandez, who runs Premiere Caterers of Clifton, the show's official caterer. His constituency is the 80 to 100 crew members who work 12 hours a day, whether in an Astoria, Queens, studio or at various Jersey locales. "These guys work long days, so we feed them a lot of red meat to keep 'em going," Hernandez said. "Well, not all; Meadow Soprano (Tony's wise-beyond-her-years teenage daughter, played by Jamie-Lynn Sigler) likes fish."

Numerous "Sopranos" scenes are filmed at Satin Dolls, which was declared a mob joint in 1992 by the state's Commission of Investigation, which cited involvement in the club's management by a reputed associate of the Genovese crime family.

These days, the mob is out of the picture at Satin Dolls, and its new owners have received a clean bill of health from the state.

Webmistress Note: OK, So he got things just a little wrong. SopranoSue contributes content for SopranoSue's Sightings, instead of running the web site, no biggie.