Hey everyone!! Since we have started HP Progs, we have talked about doing podcasts on other subjects as well. We even had a podcast for the TV show, “The Wire” for a few weeks. Well, we would like to announce that we have collaborated with the people who bring you Mugglecast to do a GENERAL news, entertainment and pop culture podcast.  This has been a long time in the making and it is part (and I need to stress the word PART) of the reason HP Progs hasn’t been out in a while.

Anyway, we have just released our Pilot Episode- we don’t even have a name yet. Do us a favor and check it out and please send in your feedback to us at pilotpodcast@gmail.com.  Remember, it is just a pilot so we haven’t tweeked it completely yet.

I also must stress that this is an explicit podcast. Meaning if language and mature content offends you, please don’t listen.

You can find the podcast at: http://tinyurl.com/bjpqgj  You will need to hit subscribe and then the feed for the episode will show up on your own iTunes podcast page.

Thank you so much for your continued support! Happy listening!

-Penny and Greg

p.s. We have guests lined up for the next HP Progs and we couldn’t be happier to interview them on a great topic!  That will hopefully recorded soon.

Hey guys. Just wanted to say hi. First of all, BIG, HUGE Thank You to everyone who commented after episode 95. It was great to see some new names as well as hear from some of our old favorite listeners again!

Things have been pretty busy around here. Greg and I are both dealing with some job related stuff and between that and regular life, we haven’t had a chance to sit down together to come up with and record Episode 96 yet. We hope to record within the next few days or so, but in the meantime, I wanted you all to know that we are still around, still reading comments, and still interrupting each other any chance we can.

If for some reason you are REALLY missing your HPProgs, I recommend going back and listening to some old episodes, that is always fun. And if you want something different, I joined the folks over at Mugglecast again for their latest episode, 166. We had a really interesting discussion and the episode should be up over the next couple of days. I am going to be a semi-regular contributor over there so you can now get a double dose of me! (How lucky for you. *Insert Sarcasm Here*)

Like I said before, we hope to record sometime over the next few days. Talk to you soon and in the meantime, Keep On Prognosticating! Oh, and Happy Holidays to all!!

-Penny:)

You were all supposed to hear this information on our newest podcast but my program crashed when I was almost done editing the episode and I lost everything, so it will be a few days until the podcast comes out. In the meantime, we wanted to get this information out ASAP.

We’ve got good news and we’ve got bad news. Let’s do the bad news first.

While we loved all of the videos submitted for our Beedle the Bard contest, we didn’t get enough submissions to give away the Deluxe Edition of the book. We apologize for this. In solidarity, we will only be buying the standard book for ourselves as well.

And now for the good news.

We have decided to give a copy of Beedle the Bard to each of the people who entered the contest. So to quote Oprah, “You’re getting Beedle the Bard, and You’re getting Beedle the Bard and…..you know the rest….”

So if the following people could please e-mail us your mailing addresses ASAP (harrypotterprogs at yahoo dot com), so we could order the book, please do so. We really appreciate it:

-Karl Kirby
-Michal and Akiva
-My Freezeray
-Amelia
-Lisa
-Becca A.

Thank you all so much for participating, Congratulations to you all!!

Our listener, Karina just informed us that she nominated us for a 2008 Podcast Award in the Culture/Arts category. We appreciate the gesture and at this point in time ask if you all have some extra time if you can send in a nomination as well.

Note: I am not 100% sure how the voting works, but you do need to send in individual nominations, we may ask you to vote again at a later date.

Thanks so much in advance and Keep On Prognosticating!!

Hey everyone.  Believe it or not, Greg and I are both under the weather right now and if we would sit down to podcast tonight the result would be a raspy, nasal, and moany sounding episode.  So we are going to do you all a favor and not subject you to our ailments.

We won’t be able to podcast over the weekend- Saturday won’t work and Sunday is our (10th!!!) anniversary so we are hoping to do something special that involves just us two and not our children or (no offense) any of you!  But we hope to podcast sometime early next week.

The good news is that you won’t be totally HPProgs free over this weekend.  Actually that isn’t true.  You won’t be totally me-free.  Earlier this week Aziza from Portus recorded a Portus Preview Podcast with different members of some of the different Harry Potter Podcasts who will be at the Podcast Palooza at Portus and I was one of the podcasters who joined in.  I believe that she plans on releasing the episode sometime Saturday and we’ll be sure to link to it when it goes up.

Speaking of Portus, the main page of their website is down but if you go to any of the other pages (such as the one I linked to in the last paragraph), you can access the rest of the site.  Also, as we mentioned in the last podcast there is one last discount going on for Portus registrants.  Here is the info:

It’s May, and owls are flying all over the country dropping off those much desired tax refunds. To celebrate all the extra galleons and sickles being dropped at our doorsteps, we have decided to present you with one last discount before Portus arrives this July! From today through May 31st, enter the code TAXMAN when registering for Portus, and you will receive a 20% discount on full and day registrations. It’s the perfect time to give your friend or relative a gift registration for Portus! Act soon before the price freezes at $220.00 for a full registration!

Honestly, after recording the Portus Preview Podcast I am more excited than ever to go to Portus (we even made our hotel reservations- that is unprecedented for us, we usually wait till the last minute!!) and we hope you can join us.

In conclusion (yes I feel like I am making a speech), we hope to bring you Episode #80 of Harry Potter Prognostications some time in the beginning-middle of next week.  In the meantime, Keep On Prognosticating!

-Penny

Hi Everyone!  This is just a heads up that as of now, we will not be releasing episode 77 this week.  Things are very busy around here and unfortunately there is no time to prepare, record, and edit the episode this week.

  We look forward to returning next week for our regularly scheduled episode, and we apologize for this.

 -Penny 

I think we may be one of the only HP sites that isn’t pulling an April Fool’sDay  joketoday.  

To thank us for that, since it is a new month, please vote for us on Podcast Alley,  and we will send each person who votes a brand new iPod Nano.   

I don’t know. 

That was a lie. 

I do know. But I don’t want to tell you.

Fine, I’ll tell you.  It hasn’t been recorded yet. Greg and Penny the Harry Potter Procrastinators, I mean Prognosticators, pushed off recording until tonight (Monday evening).  We were going to record but I (Penny) starting to get either a migraine or the worst ever sinus headache so the recording needs to be pushed off. We will hopefully be able to record tomorrow evening. 

The good news is that if you haven’t sent in any voicemails you can do that tonight or tomorrow (you can call  1-206-337-0357 in the U.S. or 07092899490 in the UK or you can send an mp3 comment into harrypotterprogs at yahoo dot com). 

Also take a listen to the March Portus Previews. They (along with Mugglecast) did an EXCELLENT interview with Jim Dale, the man I plan on marrying if Greg ever leaves me.  Did I just say that out loud?  Woops. Ignore the rambling, I have a headache.  Just to remind you Jim Dale *will* be at Portus 2008 and so will we, so we’d love you to come so we can all hang out together and fangirl scream for “Harreeeeee!”.

Hey everyone. We are a bit late on episode 72, we plan on putting it up tomorrow evening (March 10). Just to give you a preview, we are taking a break from Patterns in Potter this week. We interviewed Dr. Jeffrey Rudski about Harry Potter Addiction. The interview was quite eye-opening.   The rest of the episode will be voicemail and comment full.  Stay tuned…. 

UPDATE: This is Penny. The episode is finished. I even wrote up the episode blurb with the news. The problem is that I am trying to edit it on this new computer (and you will have a good laugh when you listen to the episode and hear me RAVE about the computer) and I am deleting things right and left because honestly, GarageBand is one of the suckiest programs to edit things in. Ever. I am so frustrated that I need to give it a rest. Unfortunately for you that means that the episode will probably not be up until tomorrow evening. I really do apologize.

UPDATE 2: This is Penny again.  I am writing from the insane asylum.  That is where they put me after I left the Apple Store tonight after being there for an hour and a half and actually stumping the “geniuses” there who teach the 1:1 classes. (But I do have to give a shout-out to Ryan at the Apple Store, thanks for your time and patience.) You would think that I haven’t been editing podcasts for a year and a half.  You would think this was the first time I’ve done this.    I am unbelievably frustrated and for the second night in a row unfortunately I have to stop before I give you anything- alas, I have work tomorrow and if I keep on dealing with the mess of editing this, I will never get to bed and the patients who are already dealing with traumatic brain injuries will be that much more damaged when I fall asleep on their beds.  So, once again, please bear with me. I will do my best to continue the editing process when I get home from work tomorrow. Thank you so much for your understanding. 

• If you are in the US, you can now dial: 206-337-0357 to leave us a voicemail comment.
•  Once again, if you are in the UK you can call: 07092 899490 
• Please keep you comments as close to one minute as possible.  
• On the show front, Episode 71 was recorded last night. I am in the middle of editing it, trying to do things on my  new computer (I haven’t named it yet, I like to name my electronics so I’ll send you all a virtual baby naming announcement  when I’ve come up with something I like.  I know I am weird. My iPod’s name is Kermit the Pod. Don’t ask.). Where was I? Oh, right I am trying to edit it with Garageband and it surprisingly is a bit more complicated than the PC editing software I was using so unless I completely give up and decide to edit the show in Audacity it will take me a bit longer.   Hopefully we’ll have the show up by later this evening 
•  Wow. I am having logorrhea this morning. 
• By the way, it is a new month so while you are waiting for episode #71, feel free to vote for us on Podcast Alley. Thanks in advance. 

Have a great Sunday everyone,Penny 

UPDATE:
I finished editing the show this morning. Now I am just waiting for the show putter upper (no need to mention any names) to put the show up.

If you want to get in your voicemail for episode 71 (Patterns in Potter, Prisoner of Azkaban part 1, yada yada yada), please have them in by Saturday March 1 at 8pm. I am hoping to record on Saturday night. Not that that means anything but one can always dream… (Remember send them to harrypotterprogs at yahoo dot com and keep them as close to a minute as possible unless they will completely and irrevocably knock our proverbial socks off.) 

Yes, I totally stole the title of this post from Travis, sorry but it works.

So here is a few tidbits of info for y’all:

–In case you haven’t noticed, the Thursday update thing has not been happening lately. We have found that it is much easier to record some time over the weekend- usually Saturday night or Sunday so for now I *think* that we are making a bit of a change to the HPProgs release schedule. For those of you who listen to other HP podcasts on that release schedule, I do to, but we appreciate your flexibility here.

–Andy, a long time HPProgs listener from Scotland has come up with a great way for the UK listeners to get us MP3 comments for the Patterns In Potter Series: You just have to dial this UK number 07092 899490 it will record your message & email to us as an mp3 file. So if you don’t have recording equipment, this is an easier solution for you.

To call the number from outside the UK the number is :+44 7092 899490. Thanks Andy, we really appreciate this.

–I feel horrible that we haven’t mentioned the HPProgs listener forums in the longest time. Yamil started these forums and Rachael has been doing a bang up job keeping it going with him. The episode discussions usually take place here on the website, but there is a lot of great discussion and introductions happening over at the forums. Make sure to check them out, and once again, thanks Yamil and Rachael!!

–Finally, the February Portus Preview Podcast is up. I haven’t had time to listen to it yet, but you better believe I will be doing so soon especially since I am getting BIG TIME excited about Portus. I will probably write more about the Portus Preview after I’ve listened to it, but I do know that they had Valentine’s Day shoutouts- which I am sure are quite entertaining!

OK, see you next time for Part two of the Chamber of Secrets Discussion in our Patterns in Potter series. You can still send us mp3 comments to harrypotterprogs at yahoo dot com (please keep them to as close to one minute as possible).

-Penny

We have gotten some really great feedback on the voicemail discussions as part of the Patterns In Potter Series. So, because we released episode #68 late, we want people to have time to listen to it before moving on to episode #69.

We plan on recording most probably (and in Greg and Penny terms that means that NOTHING is set in stone) on Saturday night. But we do want more voicemails. So please record your mp3 comment on your thoughts of the patters in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and e-mail it to us at harrypotterprogs at yahoo dot com. Once again, please keep your comments to as close as 1 minute in length as possible. We may not be able to get to EVERYONE’s comment, but would love to discuss as many as possible. We ask that you get the voicemails in by 8pm EST this coming Saturday evening (February 16).

We look forward to hearing from you- literally.

Penny

Believe it or not, we actually recorded episode 68 on Sunday.  But between a kid who might have the flu, work related emergencies, and an inability to upload the episode to the site we normally upload it to, we haven’t gotten it to you yet.  Once again, we really do apologize.  We will get this episode to you as soon as humanly possible. The good news is that you might get two HP Progs in like a 3 days time period.  Then again, with the way we are going it might be a 3 week time period…

Hey All.  Episode 68 will be recorded late this week, therefore will probably be a bit late getting to you.  Right now we are looking to record it on Friday morning.  We apologize for the inconvenience. We have gotten some pretty great sound files for the episode though and we can’t wait to include them in the Patterns in Potter discussion.

Keep on Prognosticating!!

Penny

UPDATE
Due to some circumstances beyond out control, we were unable to record this morning. We are looking at HOPEFULLY recording sometime on Saturday Night. Once again, we apologize. If you still feel like you need and hpprogs fix, let me suggest some of our better episodes to re-listen to:

-Episode #44: “Prophecy 2007 Recap.” If you are wondering what all the fuss about Portus 2008 is, listen to our thoughts on Prophecy 2007.
-Episode #48: “Dumbledore and The Greater Good.”
-Episode #53: “The Making of a Wizard: The Story of Neville Longbottom”
-Episode #55: Dumbledore is Gay! (Not That There Is Anything Wrong With That): our initial reactions to the news when JKR outed good ol’ Dumbledore.
-Episode #64: Ronald Weasley: We were in really good moods when we recorded this episode and our giddiness was sort of contagious.