Most money-grubbing franchise ever?

You know, I had heard that 'Twilight' is, in fact, an economically significant force in the US (for example, it's single-handedly keeping Hot Topic afloat). And yet, these things continue to surprise me.

Borders is holding midnight release parties FOR THE TWILIGHT DVD. And since they apparently cannot get the actual author, director, or actors (the latter two are hurrying through the filming of 'New Moon') to show up, they are having various Twilight fan group and fansite organizers - including, and I am not making this up, the official Twilight Facebook group - as 'special guests' instead.

The thing that makes it even better is that there are a half a dozen chains (Borders, FYE, Hot Topic, Target, Walmart) that all have 'exclusive special editions'. And each type of 'special edition' has different extras. So the dedicated Twihards out there have to buy, like, six different versions of the DVD to get everything.

While I do want to get the Twilight DVD for the lulz and the apparently hilarious commentary track, I don't plan to buy it from Borders; their version is overpriced. At the same time, I sort of want to go to this midnight release and pretend it's a release party for a book or movie I actually, non-sarcastically enjoy. And possibly do some Twihard observing, Jane Goodall style, which never gets old.

In other news, work is crazy as usual and the rain makes me tired, but it's nice that it's warming up and I love that it's light out after 6 PM now.