For over a year now, there has been a lot of talk about nude scenes and romantic moments making it into the two Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows films, which will end the series [Read “˜Harry Potter’ Star’s Nude Scene Confirmed For “˜Deathly Hallows’].

Now that Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Part 1 is out in theaters, we finally got to see how provocative director David Yates took the seventh film.

But, the director has revealed that a lot more was going on romantically in the uncut version of the film, which will be included in the eventual DVD release.

According to Yates, there’s 10-15 minutes of extra footage, some of which involves Ron and Hermione flirting by the sea, where Ron teaches Hermione how to skip stones across the water.

The Gold Box deal of the day over at Amazon today is Harry Potter Years 1-6 Gift Set for 60% off.

The DVD is $23.99, while the Blu-ray is $39.99.

Note, this sale is only for today, Tuesday November 23, 2010, until midnight PST while supplies last.

Both sets contain the first six Harry Potter films, along with tons of bonus features (see below for full list of extras). The Blu-ray edition comes with an extra bonus disc with additional deleted scenes; cast Q&A, a profile on author J.K. Rowling, footage from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, a look at The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at the Universal Orlando theme park, and more.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

India’s Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said that owls in the country are being taken from the wild by Harry Potter fans who want to keep the birds as pets. It’s unclear what evidence Ramesh has to back up his claim, but he said that the decline of owls in the wild coincided with the increased popularity of Harry Potter in India. He also said that urban middle classes families were, in part, responsible because they were capturing owls to give as pets to their children who like Harry Potter. Meanwhile, the wildlife group Traffic reported that wild owls in India are being illegally trapped and traded to be used for black magic rituals and other purposes.

In the Harry Potter film and book series, the boy wizard has a snowy owl named Hedwig who is his faithful companion.

This story really struck a nerve with me. I happen to love owls and every year I adopt a Snowy Owl from Defenders of Wildlife, an organization dedicated to help protect the species out in the wild. If a child really loves owls now thanks to Harry Potter, then the best thing a parent can do is donate to a wildlife fund dedicated to protecting owls — NOT take the owls from their natural environment and keep them as a pet. If middle class families are doing this, that means they can spare the $25 for the donation, which includes a small plush owl, a personalized certificate, a photo of the owl, and a fact sheet. (See this photo of one of my cats, Sixx, sitting with Snowy, my plush owl that came with my donation to Defenders of Wildlife.)

After a depressing Election Day here in the United States, I figured I’d reread some Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows before bed to get my mind off today’s events.

Before I shut the computer down, I figured I’d check to see tonight’s special over at TeeFury. Much to my surprise, it’s a Harry Potter-related t-shirt!

For only $9, you can grab today’s special titled “Ambercrombie and Quidditch” by designer spacemonkeydr. It’s a brown shirt with gold writing in the style of those Abercrombie & Fitch athletic-style tees. This limited-edition shirt is for the Gryffindor quidditch team, est. 1092, and is for the team seeker, and has the golden snitch in the center.

The sale at Teefury began at midnight (November 3, 2010) and will continue for 24 hours, and once it’s over, it’s gone forever, so grab it now if you want it.

How could we, the Geeks of Doom, not love someone called The Pumpkin Geek? it’s like discovering a long lost sibling!

This master of the art of pumpkin carving offers you Halloween and autumn fans out there the chance to get your hands on pumpkins bearing the likenesses of some of your favorite geek movie and TV characters. And this isn’t some low-quality work we’re talking about…no, no — this is insanely good pumpkin art, with picture perfect results. That, and these bad boys don’t go rotten on you. You know, when your glorious pumpkin creation caves into itself after all that hard work? Who needs that?

These pumpkins are strictly for decorative purposes; carved on “everlasting GEMMY artificial pumpkins.” I’m not quite sure what this means, but it sounds fancy enough to be worth it.

And the point of this post? No it’s not to boost The Pumpkin Geek’s sales — it’s already far too close to All Hallows’ Eve to even really take advantage of this now — but to show off some of the phenomenal pumpkins that they’ve created. You can see a bunch of our favorites by heading down below now!