It seemed just three months ago – OK, it was just three month ago – that The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey was in theaters. Then, as of last week (March 12), you could download a digital copy of the film, already, from online retailers such as iTunes, Xbox, PlayStation, Amazon, Vudu and CinemaNow.

Now, as of today, (March 19), you can also buy a physical copy of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey on 3-Disc Blu-ray Combo Pack for $35.99, on 5-Disc Blu-ray 3D Combo Pack for $44.95, and on 2-Disc DVD Special Edition for $28.98. These discs include more than two hours of additional content.

Plus, according to TheOneRing.net, on Sunday, March 24th, "Peter Jackson will host a live first look at The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, the second film in The Hobbit Trilogy." This content will be streamed live but "access to the live event will be limited to holders of an UltraViolet code" available by purchasing The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey on all these various formats. Clever indeed, Mr. Jackson.

Then, the extended edition, reportedly containing about 20 minutes of additional movie footage, will be coming later this year.

Which reminds me – Peter Jackson, I love you and I hate you. You've sucked me in again.

It's taken me about three decades to admit this, publicly, but I adore J.R.R. Tolkien, largely thanks to you.

Back in the 1980s, I dog-eared a cheap Ballantine boxed set of The Lord of the Rings. Later, in the reverse chronology from most, I devoured The Hobbit. I even persuaded my high school English lit teacher to let me write a term paper comparing the two novels' literary styles. (Thanks for the A-minus, Ms. Whaley.) Yet I remained a closeted Tolkien geek.

And then, with the release of The Lord of the Rings trilogy a decade ago, I fell for Middle-earth all over again. In December, the free world's attention was again laser-beamed, like the eye of Sauron, on all things Tolkien, as the first of Mr. Jackson's trio of hobbit movies, An Unexpected Journey, opened at every cineplex from The Shire to Mordor. And it gets worse (or better): The second film, The Desolation of Smaug, comes this December, 2013.

Peter, aka "Pete," aka "PJ," I'm happy to fall down your hobbit hole once more. Bilbo, Gandalf, Gollum – I've missed you. Who doesn't want to pick up their walking stick and march deep into a pristine, pre-industrial world? Adventure with half-stoked short folks, wizards, and runway model elves? Seek their fortune while wearing a braided wig and wielding a battle-axe named Glam-Bowie against some worthy foe? (Well, my dad doesn't share this fantasy. But pretty much everyone else on Real-earth does.)

Yet a funny thing happened along this Misty Mountain hop. It all began about a year. In the months leading up to the first Hobbit film release, Mr. Jackson began shrewdly letting us behind the curtain of his film empire by releasing, for free, a series Hobbit production videos (ten to date) on his Facebook page and YouTube. These video journals are are what comprise the 130 minutes of bonus content that comes with movie you can buy.

Despite my fears to the contrary, none of this insidery stuff on how they make the magic has dispelled the magic. Rather, every glimpse of an orc mask or performance capture costume only increases my desire to become a hobbit.

Nowadays, it's rather common for movies to release behind-the-scenes DVD footage – but only after a film has had its theatrical run. Jackson and the folks at New Line Cinema did this exhaustively with their Lord of the Rings 12-DVD set. But this time around, in an unprecedented move, Jackson and Company have been releasing their Hobbit videos check-by-jowl with each stage of film production.

Fans have been learning about the effort to rehab Hobbiton with fresh hedges, chimneys and 44 hobbit holes. They've immersed themselves in goblin movement training and the interocular intricacies of 3D, 48 frames-per-second, and green screen technology. They've focused on every hair hand-punched into every silicon hobbit foot.

I've noticed a further, curious effect of all this inside baseball: My longing to live vicariously via the exploits of the matinee or textual hero (Bilbo, Thorin, Aragorn, take your pick) has become inseparable from my desire to appear in the movie itself. Both narratives lure me: the story of one hobbit slowly finding his courage among ragtag dwarves on a quest led an irascible wizard, and an imaginary version of me finding my place among ragtag group of Kiwi filmmakers on a filmic quest led by a magnanimous fantasy film director.

Years ago in days of old, when magic filled the air, and rock gods ruled the airwaves, Led Zeppelin wrote ballads about Middle-earth as if they had travelled there themselves. The band reported back on fanfic-like exploits of Gollum and Robert Plant.

Likewise, a few years ago, I too ventured to that land, the real New Zealand, journeyed from the Shire to Mount Doom, to visit dozens of Rings filming locationss. (These adventures are chronicled in my book.) It was a foolish and genuine expression of my dream: to touch that faux world that glimmers in my mind's eye.

Yes, I want to be a hobbit and a dwarf, and I want to be a best boy and a gaffer. I want to work at Weta Workshop, the fun factory in Wellington where all the film props and prosthetics are fabricated. I want to mine Middle-earth's mithril, import the metal into the real world and forge my own chain mail which, if not to be donned by Bilbo Baggins, might at least will be on sale in the gift shop. Peter Jackson has elevated the make-up artist, seamstress, set designer and troll-snot maker to A-list talent. Like Richard Taylor, geek-in-chief behind Weta, I want to be a movie hero, however I can.

The line between reality and fantasy may be blurred by all this meta-activity. But the metaphor of"line" isn't nuanced enough. The relationship between the two experiences is more like nested eggs, or the interweaving circles of a venn diagram. Or a Mobius strip made from a nice piece of crispy bacon. Wrapped around a sausage.

The sneak-peak videos and the tie-in books, the souvenir maps and swords, the Lego sets and Lego video games and Denny's hobbit meals, and now the digital, DVD and Blu-ray versions of the film – to me, they all only make Middle-earth all seem the more real. The merchandise muscle proves Tolkien's world must exist.

I went to see The Hobbit again to complete the narrative arc I already began by watching how the film was crafted. When the film began, that was me – or part of a hobbity me – up there on the screen. And now, by owning the DVD and Blu-ray, I'll be part of it all over again.

Thanks, Peter. The real world sucks.