We’re just back from Prophecy 2007. In short, we had a great time, came home and immediately sat down to recap . Between the amazing sessions, the vast array of Potter fans and the great discussions, it was a weekend to remember. Penny recapped day one and day two in two previous posts, with some great links to many of the amazing speakers we got to hear. Make sure to check them out, as well tune in to this episode to hear our thoughts.

No news for this episode, we’ll be back with a regular episode later this week.

You can listen to the podcast with the player below, or download an mp3 directly.

Prophecy Day 2 proved to be as good as Day 1. Here is the rundown.

Day 2 started at 11:59 pm (well technically 10 pm, but we’ll get into that in a bit) when we went to hear the Leaky Mug Podcast. By “we”, obviously, I mean Greg and Me. By Greg and Me, obviously I DON’T mean my husband, Greg and me. Fortunately for me, Greg in Toronto was here (obviously, I mean, we are IN Toronto after all) and he had an interest in going to the podcast as well. What was crazy was that we had to line up for TWO hours before the podcast started just to get in. That was a bit crazy. They had us sitting like 3rd graders in a HOT corridor waiting, waiting, and waiting. While it was fun to watch kids from the various houses chair themselves on (I seem to remember Gryffindor and Hufflepuff being the loudest), the wait was a bit ridiculous. But, Greg in T and I were able to keep busy by discussing old Canadian TV (specifically, “You Can’t Do That on Television” and “Today’s Special”- two awesome awesome shows from my childhood) and asking various HP related situation questions, i.e., what would your patronus be (mine would be an animal that is both insightful and lazy and Greg would be some kind of bird) and what class would you like at Hogwarts (we both agreed History of Magic as long as it wasn’t taught by Prof. Binns).

We finally got into the podcast at midnight(ish) and were pretty close to the back of the room. The folks from Leaky and Muggle did a good job and the crowd went CRAZY. At one point I turned to Greg and said, “do you realize, this is about a BOOK?!?” That was pretty amazing. Anyway, the podcast was definitely an experience and I am (pretty) glad I stayed up for it.

Today was filled with more sessions, although I will say that I was able to sleep in until 11 am and that was fantastic. Here is the roundup:

Here is a quick summary on what has been going on here:

• Moderated a round tables discussion in the morning: Post Deathly Hallows: the theories, predictions, spoilers, etc. - It was a ton of fun- the room was full (probably around 60 people there) and the conversation was EXCELLENT.
• Gave the podcast discussion in the afternoon: Pretty good.  We had a decent amount of people there and I think it went pretty well. Everyone here is really nice.
• Met some listeners including: Greg (in Toronto), John from Michigan, Amy, and some others.  Once again, everyone is sooo nice.
• Went to a session titled, “The Science of Harry Potter” by George Plitnick who is a professor at Frostburg State University.  Very good discussion.
• Went to the session titled, “The Fountain Told a Lie: Dumbledore’s Deconstruction of the Wizarding World.” By fellow podcaster/blogger, Travis Prinzi.  I loved this.  I thought it was extremely intelligent and thought provoking.  Will talk more about it on a future podcast.
• Went to a session by Steve Vander Ark, the founder of the HP Lexicon.  He is HYSTERICAL.  I felt like I was at a stand up comedy show.  Besides being funny, he had a lot of really amazing insights into the books and I can’t wait to hear him speak again tommorow.

Now is nap time and tonight at midnight, we’ll be attending the Leaky Mug podcast (I have to drag Greg, but he is being nice and coming to it…).

 All in all, so far this is really fun.  It is crazy being in a place where when having a discussion you mention “the lost day” or the “gleam of triumph” and NOBODY gives you a questioning look.  If we do this again, we hope more of you can join us because it is really really great.

More tommorow night
-Penny 

Hi everyone. Greg and I are in Toronto at Prophecy 2007. We have to apologize because we had planned on releasing an episode before we left but, to quote a great man, “Time was making fools of us again.” Between packing ourselves up, getting our presentations ready and making sure that our kids would be dressed, fed, and supervised while we were gone, unfortunately we didn’t have time to do it before we left.We hope to be able to release something over the next few days. Hopefully from Prophecy, but that will depend on how reliable the wireless is here.

Anyway, things here are good. This is definitely an interesting experience. The good news is that Greg and I aren’t the only ones here helping to bring the average age of the participants up. Also, the costumes have been pretty cool. There was an amazing Snape-look a like walking around yesterday (who was female I believe so that was pretty cool) as well as an awesome Umbridge. We will take pictures today and post them (eventually).

Today we are giving two sessions- one on podcasting, and one post Deathly Hallows discussion- we will be getting audio copies of them, so maybe we will be able to release them on the podcast:)

OK, enough rambling for today, I just wanted to give y’all a heads up on what’s been going on with hpprogs- the canadian version (BTW, Greg is freaking out because they changed the color of The Beer Store…don’t ask.)

Penny