“What’s this?!” She gestured widely to the sink stacked with most of our pots and pans.

“Oh, yeah…” I had awoken late having disabled my alarm for a laissez faire, let the Earth (or my bladder) wake me, morning. I hadn’t left a note and I can see now that I had inadvertently breached the dishes-need-to-be-done-now sink coverage.

“No wonder your daughter has been hiding in her room all morning,” she said, apparently realizing the same thing.  

“It was just an experiment, they’re not, too dirty.”

“An experiment? Then why didn’t you put them all back in the cabinet?”

“Well…” I obviously couldn’t tell the truth. There wasn’t a “sorry” powerful enough to follow explaining how all of her Williams-Sonoma were positioned in the mud and grass so I could set up my microphone to record the rain pattering all over them. “…just an experiment.”

“Were you cooking… pasta?” 

“No.”

“Then why is my new sauce pan dirty?”

“It’s…”

“When did we buy a wok?” 

With apologies to Ann Peebles and fellow Virginian Missy Elliot; I can stand the rain against my window, it does not haunt me. Get on my window oh moderate rain for eight hours.

Star Trek: The Original Series — we’re on TV this week and on our way to Sector Z-6 to breach the neutral zone and travel into the Romulan Star empire. But first we cruise… As we try not to think about someone possibly taking a dump on the other side of the view screen. (Whaaaat?)

So as I was doing research for building the TOS Enterprise bridge (Photoshop and After Effects) — I ran across a blog that ponders whether the bridge itself is rotated 36 degrees. So the folks on the bridge face 36 degrees port. What, why? 

The blog includes a blueprint of the Enterprise bridge that shows not only is the bridge looking to the port side of the Enterprise, there is a toilet just to the right of the view screen. If you’re sitting on the toilet you will be the only person facing the front of the ship.

Just process that, presumably someone was relieving themselves as the Enterprise initiated first visual contact with the Romulans. And that dude or lady was seated facing the actual front of the ship. Presumably when the Enterprise fights General Chang in the Battle of Khitomer, someone could have been relieving themselves as the ship was pummeled with torpedoes and Shakespeare. As the crew looked for signs of a cloaked ship in the view screen, someone just to the right could have been dropping off a ****. Amazing.

And I know the later example is a new Enterprise and maybe the powder room isn’t in the same spot. Let me have this. CRYHAVOOOOC

Theater projection booth ambience — the feature film is Five Minutes to Live from 1961 and starring Johnny Cash and Ron Howard. This episode also includes just about everything else I loved of that era in theater and film. There will be the pre-movie sirens call for Lobby refreshment and money back guarantees for those who have gotten too much suspense from Hitchcock’s Homicidal. And some Gregory Peck greats as we’re treated to trailers for Guns of Navarone and On the Beach (which still feels pretty fresh for our turbulent world, unfortunately).

Take a mental break in the projection booth… Just don’t forget to look out for the cue dots.

This episode’s cover uses an original photo by Diego Ramirez.

New washing machine, normal wash setting. And hey, this is a sequel of sorts to the ⁠infinity dryer episode a couple episodes ago.⁠ Our old washer/ dryer had to be replaced after a belt snapped. Our washer dry was so old it could remember when McDonald’s tried Pizza. There were only three Star Wars movies when our washer/ dryer were working on socks and sheets. 

I think I mentioned most of this in the last details. I’m really just typing until this episode description looks long enough to appear thoughtful. Your mind will just see these well fed paragraphs and be like this doofus is probably insightful but I’m not going to double check by reading anything. 

And what would there be to say aside from I stuck a microphone up to the washing machine window and pressed record? 

Oh! I do like the font, Capitana used on the episode cover, it has a really fun 80s feel that is really showcased in how it handles numerals — only other thing I have going on is the visual ambience channel on youtube (give us a subscribe)!

Watery whirring faucet machine — This week’s episode revolves around a mystery, but I promise it’s not made out of people. It’s just a whirring watery wonder.

LG Dryer Cycle — A better title for this would be, "our dyer that dated back to the Clinton administration kicked the bucket."

We limped along for years with that thing whining. Literally, it needed a belt replacement and it was covid times and we were like… the squealing noises aren't that terrible…  

And last month the belt snapped and we sent that old pos to Valhalla.

Mild thunderstorm and a lot of rain — this recording begins Sunday night around 11-ish. And we got nowhere near the boomers our friends on the other side of the Appalachian Trail got. West Virginia looked like a sky disco for the most of the evening (from NOVA). But a thunderstorm is a thunderstorm and we break for thunderstorms here at uncommon ambience.

Rainy night/ car interior—There are two 80s songs that are my absolute nemesis. Songs dealt to me over the radio by guys like Casey Kasem and Rick Dees on our way to or back from church. (How Rick Dees survived the 90s and early aughts onslaught of “nuts” hurled at his name is beyond me).

Two songs appear in my head regularly and must be sung aloud to satisfy a tic.

“On the Wings of Love,” by Jeffrey Osborne inexplicably (I didn’t own the album) appears in my head daily. I only ever heard the song sandwiched between copy or commercials on Sunday mornings in 1982. I’m not sure “On the Wings of Love” ever peaked any top tens. Yet if my life were to be played off in my willing and unwilling musical obsessions, “On the Wings of Love” would be #1. Sigh.

Number two is “I Love a Rainy Night,” and that ***** hit #1 on those important top musical charts that I’m just realizing I have no idea how they’re measured. Okay, I’m looking at Billboard Hot 100 on Wikipedia and it says “rankings are based on sales (physical and digital), online streaming, and radio airplay in the U.S.” I feel like that could be juiced on the streaming and radio side to tilt numbers, right? Actually why am I conspiracy-ing this I have no idea what I’m talking about and who cares.

Why wouldn’t “I Love a Rainy Night” appear in my head every time it is both raining and nighttime? The song is literally about loving a crying night sky. And it’s snappy af.

I, too, love a rainy night.

Steam Radiator Ambience — I went to military school in South Carolina in the 90s, it was a bit like Harry Potter sans magic and the Forbidden Forest. We did have impossibly large roaches that appeared in our dorms and they would have befriended Hagrid.

Like Hogwarts, our school dorms were ancient, built before world wars. No air conditioning, and steam Radiators in every room. The radiators would come to life in the middle of the night hissing their parseltongues. And I got used to it.