Due to a few unforseen circumstances, unfortunately we are not going to be able to make it to NYC for the Wizard Rock 2007 show. We apologize to those of you who we were going to meet, but we hope (and know) you will all have an AMAZING time! If you do go to this show, please send reviews.

For those of you interested in HPProgs T-Shirts, we’ve got a store set up. Head on over to http://hpprogs.spreadshirt.com and check out the designs. We’ve got shirts with our logo on them, along with a few HPProgs originals (and we’ll be adding more over time). Hope you like them, and thanks for supporting HPProgs.

If you’re going to the 12:01 screening of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix at Baltimore’s historic Senator Theatre, keep an eye out for the HPProgs crew.  Penny and I will be sporting our brand new HPProgs t-shirts, passing out HPProgs bookmarks and interviewing folks standing in the line; we’ll post the video here just as soon as we can figure out how to get it off our camera.  If you’re an HPProgs listener, please say hello!
We’ll be seeing the movie sometime over the next day, and will have a podcast up with our review tomorrow night.

What can I say, I got used to seeing our names high on the list last month. My ego (and my inner pre-teen girl) needs the rush.

But seriously, the higher we are on Podcast Alley, the more exposure our podcast gets. That is a good thing, by the way.

Do me a favor please and head on over to Podcast Alley to vote for us (I am making this easy for you with a one click link). Remember, you vote once a month. I really do appreciate it. You all are awesome (and did I mention intelligent as well?!?).

Penny:)

p.s. Did you all see JKR’s new wizard of the month? So we were wrong in our prediction- but what do you think about the item he is holding?

With Book 7 just a month away, we here at HPProgs want to make sure that comments and discussion can continue without fear of spoilers. As such, we’ve taken a proactive step to make HPProgs a spoiler-free site. All comments on all posts are now moderated. While this may slow down the flow of discussion (as Penny and I will have to approve all comments before they are posted to the site), we think it’s a worthwhile trade-off in order to ensure that everyone can continue to visit, read/listen and contribute to HPProgs and our discussions without fear of having Book 7 spoiled.

If you left a comment, and it hasn’t appeared on the site for some time, feel free to email us at harrypotterprogs AT yahoo DOT com.

Please note: as of right now, this only applies to the blog; we are working on getting some kind of moderation in place for the message boards as well.

Comment moderation will be removed sometime after Book 7 is released. Thanks!

Hi everyone!  We forgot to mention this on episode 35, but if there are any listeners in the Baltimore, Washington, or Southern Pennsylvania area, we wanted to let y’all know that we will be going to the Knight Bus tour tommorow, on June 15.

 We will be at the Baltimore County Public Library stop of the tour:

 Baltimore County Public Library
The Cockeysville Library
9833 Greenside Drive
Cockeysville, MD 21030

The stop lasts from 9-12 AM and we will probably be there from around 10-10:45 AM.  If you don’t know what we look like, I’ll be the one in the neck brace.  Hope to see you there! 

-Penny:)

Thanks to all of your wonderful prognostications on the Deluxe Edition cover art, we actually have a theme for this weeks show. I just wanted to give you the heads up that the show will probably be up on Wednesday or Thursday.

Also, as a bit of a teaser, we will be announcing a brand new contest on episode 35. This contest will change the face of HPPROGS as we know it. Get ready to get your creative hats on.

-Penny:)

OK, we have some HPPROGS updates. First, you might have noticed that we’ve gone red. Yes, it is true. There is really no significance to the color change but hey, I thought I’d bring attention to it.

Second, if you haven’t noticed, hopefully you will notice over the next few days that our site isn’t down as much. Thanks to our wonderful listener, CoolCole who is graciously hosting HPPROGS on his server. We really appreciate the gesture from him and wanted to publicly thank him. Thank you!

Finally, me. Well, things are looking good. I went back to the spinal surgeon yesterday and he said that things are starting to improve. My babinski (if you haven’t listened to the last episode, sorry) is negative (that is a good thing) and in general my reflexes are much better than they were at my last appointment. This is really good news since it indicates that hopefully I won’t need surgery. Yay!!!! The pain is still there, but nowhere as bad and honestly the news from the doctor was so good that it has improved my mood so much that I can’t help but feel better.

So, once again thanks for all the notes, messages, e-mails, pictures, you name it- it has all been so helpful in making me feel better. We will most probably podcast at the normal time next week. Thanks again for everything. Y’all are great.

-Penny

Dudes.  Dudettes.  I didn’t think this would be necessary.  Come on people.  I didn’t want to have to invoke my Jewish Mother guilt on all of you.  I figured it would be clear.  Am I going to have to start nagging?  I know we skipped an episode this week (and with good reason, I’ll remind you), but did you all not realize it is a new month?  Seriously people.  Just do me an itty bitty favor and make your way over to podcast alley and put us back where you put us last month (thanks to all of you we never went lower than 23 in the ranks- not bad I tell ya!!). 

I’ll make a deal with you.  If I see that there is a concerted effort in the voting, I will post a VERY funny fake hpprogs episode that one of our listeners made this week in lew of a real episode.  It had us laughing out loud.  It is worth it, I promise.

In other news here is my health update.  We are currently in a state of limbo.  I have gotten some differing opinions from different doctors re: surgery vs. no surgery and about whether this injury is affecting my spinal cord majorly or not so majorly.  The pain is still very much there, but luckily I got the stronger drugs yesterday.  Greg and I hope to podcast within the next few days though so not to worry.  We miss doing it.

 Anyway, back to the Jewish Mother guilt I mentioned before.  Do you want me to feel better?  You know what to do.

Penny:) 

While we’re waiting for Penny to get better, we’ve put together a site with links to the very best Harry Potter books, movies and more; we’re calling it the HPProgs Book Shelf. Browse around and let us know what you think. Shopping through the HPProgs Book Shelf is a great way to support HPProgs. All products are through Amazon, so if you preordered from Book 7 from Amazon, you can cancel your existing order and re-sign up through the bookshelf, and you’ll still get Book 7 on release day!

We’ll be adding products/categories periodically, so make sure to check back often. Our first category page is a collection of great books of commentary on the Harry Potter novels. Check it out!

You can get there any time by visiting:

www.hpprogs.com/bookshelf

Hey everyone.  I just wanted to give you guys a quick HPPROGS update.

• Keep the comments and theories coming.  We want you to know we have read all of them and plan to respond, but life has a way of getting in the way sometimes.  I have been having  back/shoulder/neck pain for the last few weeks and on Friday I found out that I have two broken bones in my neck.  We aren’t sure from what -but they are there.  Anyway, we are still waiting for the radiologist to write up the MRI results (the bureaucracy of the medical system for those of us not actually in the system is astounding) and then my doctor will figure out what the next step will be.  In the meantime, I finally got some heavy duty pain killers this morning which are actually allowing me to be able to sit up- but things are painful to say the least.  But my point is (and I do have one) that I haven’t been able to respond to any of the great comments and theories that you all have posted on the blog/website, facebook, myspace, etc.  Greg has been waiting on me as well (he even cancelled a business conference he was supposed to go to this week) so he hasn’t had time to attend to hpprogs stuff either.  But like I said before, please keep the comments, thoughts, suggestions, theories, prognostications coming.  They are all entertaining (and thanks to all of you who sent Laura Mallory news links- NICE!!) and keeping me sane.
• I am not sure if we will be able to podcast this week but we will keep you all posted on that as well.
•  In exciting HPPROGS news, we now have transcribers on the staff (we will have to make a staff page, we know).  Jason and Irina both graciously offered to start transcribing the shows and we really appreciate it.  We will keep you posted on where the transcripts will be located.
• Thanks to all of you who responded to the post about the server, design etc. of this website.  We will be in touch with you about that as well.
•  Finally, let’s have a bit of fun here.  Scholastic posted their 4th pre-Deathly Hallows Question : Who Ends up With Whom?”  I don’t even know if Scholastic is offering choices but let’s hear your thoughts.  And none of these boring Harry/Ginny or Ron/Hermione answers (and I plead with you no Harry and Hermione- for the love of all things good, we know they don’t end up together)- come out all you Madame Pince/Filch and Bellatrix/Neville Shippers (what?  I am stuck in bed, I need some entertainment).  We know you’re out there! 

Thanks for your patience.

-Penny:)

So…you may have noticed that HPProgs.com has been down a bit recently; ever since I upgraded the Wordpress installation to version 2.1, we’ve been having a lot of problems, probably compounded by the fact that HPProgs runs on an old Pentium in my basement.  We’re in the process of looking for a more suitable home for HPProgs; if any listeners happen to have server space, and would be willing to donate some space for a Wordpress blog (all podcast files are hosted by a third-party, so bandwidth requirements are next to none), please get in touch.

Also, if you’re an experienced Wordpress theme designer, and would be willing to contribute, I’ve got a pretty good idea how I want to redesign the site to give it more of a unique look, please get in touch.

Thanks!

It’s May, which means you can once again vote for HPProgs on Podcast Alley (you can also use the direct voting link). Help make HPProgs #1!

I’ve added a cool little widget, courtesy of the folks at Odeo, to the sidebar.  It provides easy access to all the HPProgs podcasts.  Even better, you can post the player to your own site (or MySpace page); just visit this page at Odeo, copy the code (you can customize the colors, etc. if you like) and paste the code into your site.

This week’s been pretty busy, so Episode #3 will be postponed for a few days (I’m hoping to be able to do it tonight or tomorrow, so we can have it up over the weekend).

In other news, we’ve got 27 subscribers so far, including 14 from iTunes (one of which is me, but whatever).  Awesome!  Thanks so much to everyone who commented (Dan and Tammy!) and subscribed (we need some more reviews on iTunes, though!).

Stay tuned, we’ve got more progs coming your way!