Carousel questions

Two question about the carousel on the homepage (which turns out to be a little bit a pain in the *ss):

1. How do you get the current amount of bids on an item to display in the query string of the carousel?

2. How do you set the order for expiring listing first? Tried meta_key=listing_expiry_date&meta_value=&order=asc however NOT working.

Support would be highly appreciated!

Thanks Jelmer