Football Preseason Friday Afternoon Links

by | Aug 21, 2026 | Cocktails, Daily Links, I Am Lame | 97 comments

Making sure the clear bag is packed for the game tomorrow, hoping they still have some Dawg Pound 40 gear available in the Team Shop (I was hoping to score some at the locker room sale, but they didn’t do one last year).

I will be booing him.

The joy of a market, Rogue is being parted out, and bids are being placed.

OK, I need someone from the area to let me know if it’s as good as it sounds.

California is a serious state.

I blame Millennials for this.

This is my favorite gaming train wreck.

I stand with Bruce.

Do you hear it? The wailing of the AWFLs that this isn’t happening to them?

I like Pablo Pledgescobar.

Making the rounds before Halloween?

I know some here have been following the Lego saga.

Ignore the Bernie behind the curtain.

Recently local stores had blueberries on sale (buy 1 pint, get 2 free), so I had to come up with uses for them. So that’ll help explain the drink today

Blueberry Gin Fizz

  • 1 part (0.5 oz) lemon juice
  • 2 part (1 oz) blueberry syrup (recipe below; or go with a different flavored syrup)
  • 3 part (1.5 oz) gin
  • Soda water (to top)

To make blueberry syrup, take an equal amount of blueberries, water, and sugar (by volume) into a small saucepan. Stir to dissolve the sugar, and cook over medium heat until it reaches a boil. Lower the heat, and simmer for 10-20 minutes. You can run it through a blender, or stick an immersion blender in to break up the whole blueberries. Strain into a clean container, let cool, and refrigerate.

To make the drink, put all the ingredients but the soda water into a shaker with ice. Shake until chilled and mixed, strain into a highball glass with fresh ice. Top with soda water, give a brief stir to combine, and garnish with fresh blueberries and mint (if you’d like). I hope you don’t need me to tell you that this is a guideline recipe, go ahead and adjust things as you’d like, including the base spirit.

With that, I’ll let you get to your weekend.

About The Author

Nephilium

Nephilium

Nephilium is a geek of multiple types living in the vast suburban forests of Cleveland.

97 Comments

  1. bacon-magic

    I still need to try gin one of these days.

    • Nephilium

      *blink* *blink*

      Why would you not have tried it? And odds are you’ve technically had some, as every flavored vodka is technically a gin.

      • bacon-magic

        More of a whisky drinker. I did have a vodka phase but never went through a gin phase. I will get a bottle of some soon and make some dirty martinis.

      • Nephilium

        Most Dirty Martinis are made with (spit) vodka in the current day. I would follow the others, and recommend starting with a gin and tonic, and will heartily recommend Fever Tree for the tonic. If you’re not a tonic fan, I would think a Bee’s Knees (lemon:honey syrup:gin), Negroni (gin:Campari:sweet vermouth), or traditional Martini (gin:dry vermouth:orange bitters) would be a better introduction.

    • Pat

      I highly recommend The Botanist.

      • EvilSheldon

        The Botanist is also great. If you like it, you’ll probably like Highclere Castle as well.

        In fact, there aren’t that many gins I wouldn’t suggest. Avoid anything sold in a plastic bottle.

      • ron73440

        I highly recommend The Botanist.

        I agree, it is my favorite “plain” gin.

      • Pat

        If you like it, you’ll probably like Highclere Castle as well.

        I’ve bought it a couple times, it’s good. I like a good whack of juniper, which a lot of the modern boutique gins shy away from. Can’t go wrong with Bombay Sapphire either. Of the less traditional styles, I like Drumshanbo Gunpowder Irish Gin, Suntory Roku Gin, and Gray Whale.

      • EvilSheldon

        If you like a good whack of juniper, you should try Sipsmith V.J.O.P. Navy Strength. It makes the most brutally uncompromising martini I’ve ever had in my life – the martini you order when you just got fired from your job, your car got t-boned by an uninsured illegal on the way home, and when you finally got home you caught your wife screwing your best friend.

      • Pat

        I’ll have to see if I can find some, that sounds right up my alley.

    • EvilSheldon

      For a long time, I didn’t like gin. One of my handful of public-vomiting-in-college experiences, don’t ask.

      Maybe ten years ago, some friends took me out for my birthday and bought me a Hendricks Gin and tonic, made with Fever Tree tonic water and a cucumber spear garnish, and it was about the best thing I’d ever tasted. I became an instant gin fan, and nowadays gin is my second-favorite cocktail base, just behind rum.

      (Interestingly, I don’t really drink Hendricks that much these days. Nothing wrong with it, I’ve just found other gins I like better.)

      So I suggest a good stiff Hendricks and tonic for your gin training wheels. Ideally at a place that gives you the bottle of Fever Tree on the side, so you can adjust the ratio of gin to tonic to your liking…

      • Shpip

        My wife’s story is similar. For years we were regulars at a college dive bar where the gin was a half-step above the stuff you make in your bathtub. So, for years, she said “I hate gin! Gin tastes like cheap perfume!”

        Then I made her an Aviation with Hendricks, and it was her Road to Damascus moment.

        “I don’t hate gin… I hate cheap gin!” she exclaimed.

        She’s still a rye whiskey girl at heart, but at least she doesn’t give me the stink-face when I order a gin cocktail at a bar anymore.

      • ZWAK, doktor of BRAIN SCIENCE!

        About 5-6 years ago, the wife started drinking Hendricks rocks. An odd choice, especially for her, but it has become her go to.

      • Pat

        I haven’t seen that one before.

      • Sean

        It’s my favorite.

      • creech

        Bluecoat has a store in the King of Prussia Mall. I’ve never seen any customers in the store. Rent there ain’t cheap, so I imagine they sell a lot of gin when no one is looking.

      • Ted S.

        Maybe they’re just avoiding being in the mall at the same time as you, creech.

  2. kinnath

    One of my most popular meads at festivals is blueberry and lime. Might work well in this drink too.

  3. EvilSheldon

    From the Rogue Brewing story:

    …biological strain and propagation rights of Rogue’s proprietary yeast;

    Propagation rights? Now I really want to hear about US IP law applies to yeast strains…

  4. Pat

    The Farmer’s Cellar brought in just over $1.7 million in revenue from its opening in May 2025 through April, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It. The convenience store brought in about $1.4 million in revenue and the gas station brought in almost $1.9 million in revenue during the same period.

    I’ve heard the best way to make a million dollars in the restaurant business is to start with 2 million, so this checks out.

  5. Pat

    I blame Millennials for this.

    That sounds horrendous.

    • ZWAK, doktor of BRAIN SCIENCE!

      Almost as bad as a blue berry gin fizz.

  6. Sensei

    It seems like neither the players nor the developers of Star Citizen, the game that’s raised over a billion dollars in crowdfunding since it was announced way back in 2012 when dinosaurs such as democracy still roamed the earth, are having a good time right now

    Never change Kotaku, never change.

    • Pat

      Ask the same clown about Ukraine’s munchkin generalissimo suspending elections because the country’s been under martial law for 4 years.

    • Ownbestenemy

      So they are saying Democracy died during Lightbringer’s days?

  7. Shpip

    The concentration camp is notorious in the community as President Donald Trump continues his purge of anyone in the country who’s not white.

    If only the President were nearly as based as leftists make him out to be.

    • Sensei

      I often said during his first term – I’m still waiting for the trains packed with people headed to the camps.

      • JaimeRoberto feckful & gruntled

        They run at night so you won’t notice them.

      • juris imprudent

        We would notice fewer loudmouth leftists. You seen a shortage of them lately?

  8. Sensei

    By now we know that charity, generosity and compassion are virtues that the US president doesn’t seem to have even in trace amounts

    Yes, but Team Blue extracting money from via implied violence and taxes to “give” to their preferred causes are “generosity and compassion”, right?

    • JaimeRoberto feckful & gruntled

      C’mon man. They’re just asking you to pay a little more.

  9. Ted S.

    I will be booing him.

    And I will be keeping my ad-blocker on.

  10. rhywun

    I will be booing him.

    Refresh my memory… because he sucks?

    Torn now whom to root for. Definitely Bills over those clowns but more in general… should I pick a NYC team now that I live here? I didn’t follow football the entire quarter century I lived here before so I have no opinion on either of the local choices.

    • Nephilium

      $230 million guaranteed contract, no-trade clause, giving up years of first round picks, for a single good half of football from a creep who liked happy endings from masseuses. But stick with the Bills, there’s an honor to staying with the hometown team.

      • B.P.

        Are the Browns playing all 11 quarterbacks tomorrow? I feel obliged to root for a successful Shedeur, as he played for my alma mater (not Jackson State). Yes, the self-promotion and all of the bling-bling was really, really off-putting. Everything I’ve heard is that he was a good kid on campus, got good grades, and was even a bit shy.

      • Nephilium

        We’re back down to 4 QB’s (I think… Sanders, Watson, Gabriel, and the new guy). Shedeur has impressed me with his media and local presence. I thought he was going to be OBJ level drama, and he’s been much closer to Chubb. I’ve got some respect for him. He’s supposed to be playing the first half, with Watson coming in next.

      • B.P.

        Good to hear.

      • rhywun

        To be fair, Buffalo is not my “home town” even though my actual home town is covered by that NFL market. I have spent more years in the NYC market than anywhere else in my life.

      • B.P.

        I grew up exactly equidistant between Buffalo and NYC, so the town was split between the Bills and the Jets/Giants. I was the odd kid out rooting for the Bengals, as my family was KY transplants.

  11. The Late P Brooks

    Blah blah fucking blah.

    The American President should take a vow of poverty and be a shoeless mendicant, owning naught but the raggedy shirt on his back.

    You know, like Joe Biden and that nice Obama couple.

    • B.P.

      The Biden family gave it the old college try, but apparently it didn’t work out because they’re supposedly broke. I’m sure Jill Biden’s book sales will save the family, just like Ulysses Grant’s memoirs.

    • Aloysious

      I like the word ‘mendicant’.

      • J. Frank Parnell

        I only know that word from Groo the Wanderer

      • Sean

        Mulch.

    • creech

      But I wouldn’t mind a requirement that all elected officials have to put their asset holdings in a blind trust for the duration of their time in office. And, while we are dreaming, all campaign contributions are funneled through a cpa firm that is contractually bound not to tell the candidates where the money came from. If who you vote for is kept private, then who you sent a contribution too should be private too.

  12. The Late P Brooks

    After all, greed is one of the seven deadly sins.

    So are envy, sloth and wrath, you hateful twat.

    • creech

      All the seven “deadly sins” are situational. In some situations they can be appropriate, with NAP applying.

    • slumbrew

      I just love being lectured about sin by atheists.

      (I’m playing the odds)

    • rhywun

      It’s a good thing I would never eat those weeds.

  13. Sensei

    Supreme Court allows Trump’s ballroom construction to continue for now

    Obligatory – AC/DC – Big Balls

    • EvilSheldon

      That’s my go-to karaoke song.

  14. Fourscore

    I’m happy not to have Donnie’s assets. I’m trying to give away as much of the stuff I have now. Granted, it’s mostly junk but if someone needs a particular kind of junk

    and I have it I’d be happy to see it go.

    My understanding is that the Bidens are in debt. Hunter learned it from you, Joe.

    • Chipping Pioneer

      You wouldn’t happen to be looking to bequeath a pair of aluminum ATV loading ramps, would you?

      • Fourscore

        Never had an ATV, I enjoyed walking the woods as a younger guy and thought of ATVs as tools. I have a tractor and smaller things to do the yard and woods work so never got around to an ATV..

  15. B.P.

    “Why would anyone need so many billions of dollars?”

    I can’t speak for The Donald, but maybe he’s building a huge war chest for when he leaves office and he and his family get sued/prosecuted by half the states well into the 22nd century. And when a Dem administration is back in power, look out. That article is hilarious. There’s a few factoids at the top, and then paragraph after paragraph of rank speculation and shaming. I’m open to the idea that the second Trump administration has been wildly corrupt, but please be specific. Trump got into crypto after his administration rejiggered the rules in crypto’s favor? Jared Kushner has some bazillion dollar hedge fund built on foreign influence? Yeah, I don’t like that at all. I don’t like it when other politicians do it, either.

    “It’s impossible to imagine him following the examples set by billionaires such as Melinda Gates and Mackenzie Scott, who have pledged and made huge contributions to good causes.”

    *vomit*

    “Every December, faculty members at the college where I teach read Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol aloud, section by section, to a group of students and colleagues. Each year we laugh and cry together as the three ghosts – representing the past, the present and the future – visit the miserly Ebenezer Scrooge and terrify him into changing his selfish ways.”

    *vomit* Yeah, I want to go to the university where the teachers still observe story time by reading to the kids.

    • ZWAK, doktor of BRAIN SCIENCE!

      I hear/read so often of the Trump admins corruption, but am never given examples of it. Which tells me that it is simply that he violates shibboleths of the chattering class, not anything actually illegal.

    • Pat

      “Why would anyone need so many billions of dollars?”

      It certainly comes in handy for making tantrum throwing nepo babies piss and moan in public, you envious gargoyle.

      In case anyone’s unfamiliar with Francine Prose, btw:

      “Charlie Hebdo’s work is not important,” Francine Prose told me, over the phone. “It’s not interesting.” She said she was offended by Charlie’s crude cartoons of the Prophet and mockery of the religion of France’s marginalized Muslim community: “It’s a racist publication. Let’s not beat about the bush.” She compared the magazine’s Muslim caricatures to Goebbels’s anti-Semitic propaganda. “I don’t see a difference, really. It’s the same big noses and thick lips.” She pointed out that many dozens of Mexican and Russian journalists had been killed for reporting on their government’s corrupt doings. Why not honor them?

      • R.J.

        Whatever Jalopnik or Kotaku is doing, I will not read it or give it any thought. I left that behind years ago when they all went batshit retarded commie.

  16. DEG

    Oregon Brewing estimated the craft beer brand’s IP at $2 million in its valuation of assets, according to Brewbound. Rogue’s IP assets include its website domain; all confidential information, including recipes, manufacturing, specifications, and quality control; biological strain and propagation rights of Rogue’s proprietary yeast; social media accounts; and trademarks, including that of its famed “Dead Guy” IPA.

    I liked Rogue’s stuff. Hopefully it all comes back.

    • EvilSheldon

      Dead Guy Ale was alright, but I really miss Rogue Chocolate Stout Nitro. A short pint of that with a scoop of french vanilla ice cream…that’s one of my favorite summer deserts.

      • Aloysious

        My favorite was their Shakespeare Stout. For me, it was for when only a stout would do.

      • ron73440

        Dead Guy was one of the ones I would buy every time on my monthly beer runs, the other was Arrogant Bastard.

        Double Dead Guy was amazing, but it wasn’t available for very long.

        The same went for Double Bastard.

      • Nephilium

        ron73440:

        Double Bastard was always a winter release, Arrogant Bastard was a year round, but they changed the recipe back ~15 years back. They also changed the recipe for their IPA, Ruination, and Pale Ale at the same time. None of the new recipes were as good as the old ones.

        Thus began the fall of Stone.

      • Threedoor

        Chocolate and hazelnut stouts were my favorite of theirs.

  17. Ownbestenemy

    Star Scam Citizen is nearly an NGO at this point.

    • Sensei

      Good analogy.

  18. JaimeRoberto feckful & gruntled

    Vote for Pablo!

    • juris imprudent

      I really liked the suggestion that PSU should be forever called The Nittany Lines.

  19. rhywun

    the developers straight-up were not having a good time with each other

    So… like every day at work.

    JK, mostly.

  20. cyto

    Bootlicker gonna bootlick. Except this one is on the 6th circuit of appeals.

    https://youtu.be/YsjoVeDBDVM

    • cyto

      Is this the one where police set up a pretext stop based on lies about kiddie porn in order to find out about protected political activity using the border exception and then forced him to give up his password (illegal), so he gave them the duress password that reset the device?

      Because if so, then “deleting his phones data” is a stretch.

      But the powers that be hate failure to kowtow way more than they hate murder and rape.

    • cyto

      That isn’t just interesting… it is baffling.

      My low rolling resistance tires come with an 80k rating.

      • cyto

        They also made fuck-all difference in the mpg i saw. It may have been better. Or worse. But I couldnt tell.

      • Sensei

        I’ve got them on the Tesla as stock. I’m short trips, but people on forums get 60k on them if they don’t drive like maniacs.

      • Sean

        “ if they don’t drive like maniacs.”

        There’s always a catch!

    • R.J.

      Perhaps they are made of recycled toilet paper.

  21. Mojeaux

    I had to run out on my lunch break to get the thing. Got dressed (no jammies at the gun store), gathered ALL the IDs, hopped in my car, and zipped to my local neighborhood shop. Got home an hour later with merchandise (gun, laser, ammo).

    I mean, I already had a DOJ clearance, so…

    I haven’t even taken the fucker out of its box to fondle it. I just needed to get it fast and I had an hour. I looked at the girls ringing me up and said, “I love Missouri.”

    @EvilSheldon, Libertyish Missouri. The gun store is like 5 minutes away and they have tons of classes.

    • Sean

      Lube it up.

      😉🤣

  22. Mojeaux

    Squatters in the hood. This is extremely recent, but it escalated today, hence the speed.

    Bro2 has some property here, trying to make some residual income being a landlord. From Seattle. But he’s giving up the ghost and he’s had some health issues, so we (me and husband) started getting it ready to sell, figuring out what it needed, etc. It’s in the hood, but you know, every hood has That One Nice Block, and this is that. XY has been going down there to mow. Got rolling with a real estate lady who needs to have about a million dollars dropped on her head.

    Short story: Bro2 says, “Hey didnyou change the locks?” WTF NO. Squatters. Break-in. Well, crap. But I was JUST THERE a week ago. Okay, but it’s vacant. Thanks, post office, for advertising it. Utilities are on, in my name.

    Real estate lady has A Guy. Several. Got it all fixed up and staged. Cameras. Police reports, etc etc etc. I get a notice confirming that my electricity has been cut off. Are you fucking kidding me. So I call up the electric comoany and say, “Put that back.”

    THEY BREAK IN AGAIN!!! Well. Fuck. This is an invasion.

    TODAY. Bro2 finds out there’s a forged quit-claim deed and a $30k loan against the house, through an octopus of LLCs. He’s like, I’m getting on a flight and moving in.

    Dude, you live in Seattle. I know you are not armed. He says, “How fast can I get one there?” “YOU can’t. *I* can.”

    Anyway, plans changed because found out the name they decided to use as the fake notary is a partner at a huge real estate law firm based in a chichi oart of town. So he’s going to park himself on her doorstep Monday morning and tell her her name is being taken in vain. Then cops, FBI, etc etc etc.

    • Sean

      Us gun Glibs still wanna know what ya got.

      🤨

      • Mojeaux

        I hesitate to tell you because you will laugh at the stupid glibette. (I mean, I STILL don’t know bc I can’t be arsed to get up and get it.)

      • UnCivilServant

        Unless it’s a Hi-Point, we wouldn’t laugh. But you already said it wasn’t.

      • Ted S.

        She got a gun.

    • UnCivilServant

      Squatters who pull that shit needs to be publically torn into tiny bloody strips and used as public garlands.

    • Evan from Evansville

      Good on your purchase and prep. Damn. Hope the sale and everything goes smoothly.

      “…there’s a forged quit-claim deed and a $30k loan against the house, through an octopus of LLCs.” <– That's creepy. By now, I'm sure they've got boilerplate shit for it, but how easy it was for squatters to get hold of Scary Legal Documents is unsettling.

      Get out soon, and you'll still have a shiny new toy!

      • UnCivilServant

        That tells me these people have pulled this scam before.

        They need to face consequences. Thrown into the darkest pit and left to rot is the bare minimum.

    • cyto

      I am not believing what I am reading

  23. Mojeaux

    Sig Sauer P365.

    • UnCivilServant

      😀👍

      I looked at them but it was my giant mitts and sausage fingers that made me pick a different carry gun. I have to assume that you don’t have my oversized hands and thus it’d be a solid choice.

      • Mojeaux

        Well, lemme put it this way. I had to have my wedding ring re-sized to a 4.

    • Sean

      Solid.
      ⬅️

      Buy good hollow points.