Late at night, the traffic outside our apartment is beginning to annoy me. Apparently trucks aren't allowed on the FDR, so they use 1st Avenue to go uptown through Manhattan. And they all seem to do it starting around 10 PM, continuing all night. Our bedroom is far from the windows on the 1st Avenue side of the apartment, so we don't notice the noise while we're trying to sleep, but it's a big problem when we're trying to watch TV. I hope we're not bothering our downstairs neighbor by using the stereo and turning up the volume to hear the TV over the traffic. I'm also annoyed by the late-night revelers at The Gaf, the bar next door, but since it's a decent place, I can forgive them. Maybe in a few years, when I become an old man and completely anti-social, I'll get really upset.

We continue to discover great new channels on the digital TV system. Last week I watched a program about the development of the Luftwaffe's escort fighter on Discovery Wings. Last night, Ovation ran a three-hour marathon of The Phil, a late 1990s documentary on the Philharmonia orchestra in London. Late one night, VH1 Classics had a show called “The World's Fugliest Rock Stars” on the schedule, but it started at 2 AM and I had to go to bed.

We installed our air conditioner on Saturday afternoon, and now that we're finally getting some summer weather, we're happy we did. We also bought a new bed and mattress, a variety of household items at Bed, Bath, and Beyond, and the new Harry Potter book. I'm about 200 pages into the last item, and it's good so far. It is far darker than the other books, and Harry's quite the moody teenager. I don't want to spoil it for anyone else, so I'll keep my other thoughts on the book to myself.