Re:Building Together EP 347 — Wayback Wednesday: "Snacking W/ a Buzz"

After an Immortal Technique intro track played in full, CEELOS opened episode 347 with a brief philosophical objection to calling Wednesday "midweek" ("it's technically not middle of the week until it's six o'clock in the afternoon on the West Coast"), then explained the rebrand: stoner snacks became "snacking with a buzz" because a grown-up beverage counts too. "Buzz is all around to everybody."

CEELOS walked through re-making his pink PFP from last year, mostly because the original carried a Gemini watermark that got on his nerves. The real takeaway was his insistence on the exact background hex — 649685 — across every edit he makes: "we are com— we have commandeered this color palette, it is now officially the regen color."

CEELOS asked if everyone did their homework, clarified it was "get lit right before the space starts," and Val immediately went to eat edibles. Six minutes later she reported in: "I am definitely high too from my edibles." CEELOS, gently: "See, I was just kidding, you didn't have to, but I knew you were gonna do that anyway" 17:07.

Val's long-running snack crime: she's never been into milk, so chocolate chip cookies get dipped in water until they go soggy. She's been judged for this her entire life. Bonus confession — scraping all the Oreo cream into one glob and eating it. CEELOS tried the glob thing once and described the aftermath as a waxy film "like when you eat cold bologna."

The best stretch of actual conversation. Baked laid out a complete philosophy of food avoidance — "There's one thing I hate more than anything. It's the act of making food. I love the end product, it's great, but it disappears very fast, and it was so much work for it. I think the gratification scale is messed up there." CEELOS countered that he finds cooking therapeutic and takes notes when a dish misses. Baked allowed one exception: baking, because you can decorate it. Asked whether he and his roommates take turns cooking, he answered with a logic that CEELOS found unimprovable 26:29: "we're three dudes that live in a house, we're not dating each other."

Out of a Mandalorian tangent, Baked volunteered what he called a little-known fact: C-3PO is his favorite Star Wars character, with a very specific tattoo concept already drawn up — the half-built, wires-exposed version from Anakin's workshop. "Hey, I'm a serious Star Wars nerd, okay? There's levels to this." CEELOS immediately proposed the rename: "baked 3P."

Invited in by JP and her husband from the Gob space, Val is a year-plus into campaigns and has her son Matthew playing his first. Her reason was more considered than the topic suggested: inner-child work, getting comfortable being silly, and not bossing her kid around at the table — "we're both playing a game and that's it." Her origin story is better: her first-ever session happened during seasonal cannery work in Alaska, in a camper, with two friends whose recreational habits she declined to endorse 40:07. She's not doing character voices yet. CEELOS offered to be a practice audience.

CEELOS's brain did what it does: if the NFT is the character, could the role-play be abstracted so players just understand what the moves mean? He admitted his frame of reference was mostly Stranger Things. Val noted AI has been genuinely useful for her character sheet — she tells it which guide the group uses and it narrows spells to her class.

Baked went down a rabbit hole after reading "natural flavor" on the bag and came back with the finding that most of America only knows two grape varieties because those are the ones with shelf life. CEELOS is unconvinced on principle: "I've been around for a few cycles, and I don't remember no damn cotton candy grapes." He freezes grapes to use as ice cubes you can eat afterward. Baked's verdict on that 51:11: "Chewy water, I'm good."

A bacon-wrapped jalapeño popper with two names, and the room concluded marketing is everything. Val offered a third name that did not help. CEELOS, delighted and appalled: "See, she calls it a rat tail." The segment ended with everyone genuinely hungry and admitting it.

Baked confirmed the games run every other week and will likely skip the upcoming week for ApeFest, with the 22nd or 26th as the next candidates. He also put a Regen on the line for each of the next three games, contingent on 15+ community members showing up in Regen avatars, with Ghostin continuing to add prizes and donations. CEELOS asked for a dedicated non-game-day session to teach the basics — how to run, how to move, what each button does — for people who haven't set foot in the Other Side.