The good news is that I hadn't written anything new for you anyway. The better news is that so many of you cared that the site was down. All day I was flooded with IMs and e-mails from people wondering what happened. There was speculation at the ultra-useful Mandarin Design Blog. At a local party, friends pressed for answers. Have no fear, people, the site is back, and I haven't dropped it from my list of hobbies.

What do you say we start the weekend with a good 'ol-fashioned link dump?

News Links:

• Buffalo Wing Turns 40 — Happy anniversary to the low-carb delicacy that best combines taste and price, as opposed to the more expensive rib-eye steak or shrimp scampi. Goes perfect with a pitcher of Miller Lite for a low-carb meal that will have the pounds shedding like Ron Jeremy's back being run over by a lawn mower.

• Over the Rainbow Rated No. 1 Movie Tune — Didn't I already make my own list two years ago? Nothing can touch Gonna Fly Now from Rocky, and I've already suggested to an editor at ESPN.com that, in Bill Simmons-speak, it deserves its own column.

• Britney Distraught After Her Car Runs Over Photographer — Photographic evidence shows the pop diva's concern for the fallen ... till her Maltese terrier climbs in her arms. Playboy photoshoot countdown begins now.

• Judge Suspected of Masturbating in Court — Maybe if this was the Winona Ryder trial or something, but c'mon, dude.

• Girls Who Get it — Joe Concha's guide to being a perfect girlfriend. Though it's all relative — this is really the image of Joe's perfect gal — this kind of stuff always draws reactions either way.

• Taking Life's Final Steps — An intriguing Los Angeles Times piece on a phenomenon called "nearing death awareness" — a state in which researchers reveal what dying might be like and what a person needs to die peacefully.

• Reagan Makes Clinton Look Small — Charles Krauthammer argues that history will remember Slick Willie's small victories, won by a president that, he says, would never have been elected during the Cold War, because "history produced the President perfectly suited to the time — a time of domesticity, triviality and self-absorption."

• Britney Spears Engaged to Dancer — Didn't we just go through this in Vegas? Who does she think she is, J-Lo? And they worry about gays ruining the sacrament of marriage?

Sports Links:

• Larry Walker Hits Three Homers Friday Night Against Tribe — One could spend an entire day debating Walker's Hall of Fame credentials. On one hand, you have a five-tool player: A seven-time Gold Glove right fielder whose stats per 162 games are .314 BA, 31 HR, 109 RBI, 111 R, 20 SB, .400 OBP, .567 SLG. Way better than Rafael Palmeiro. On the other hand, you have the Coors Field advantage and a guy who only once played in more than 143 games in a season.

• SI.com's MLB Power Rankings — As of press time, the Yankees have six fewer losses than any other AL team, four fewer than any NL team. Three home games with the Red Sox next week could provide the answer to one of this year's great questions: Will the Yankees run away with the AL East for the seventh year in a row, or will they merely win it by a few games?

• Mushnick: Sterling a 'Career-Long Creep'; Francessa a 'Pompous and Disingenuous Jerk' — In a piece about Marv Albert's ousting from the MSG Network, the New York Post's media columnist goes to town on the voice of the Yankees and New York's most recognizable sports talk radio host.

• Bonds Calls Boston Racist — Baseball's least beloved figure — you can count the number of Bonds fans outside of San Fran on one hand — says about the possibility of the racial climate in Boston changing since the days his father was as active player: "It ain't changing. It ain't changing nowhere." (Link found on SportsByBrooks.com)

• Video Game Preview: NCAA Football 2005 — I believe this is the first game to include a homefield advantage in the gameplay. Those road games at Rutgers are tough, so watch out! Can't see buying this and Madden 2005, the release date of which (8/12) should be a national holiday for males 18-34. Good to see Ray Lewis is the cover boy for the best-selling sports video game, with him having been convicted of obstruction of justice in a murder case and all.

• Sportscard Daily — SI.com's attempt at mirroring the success of ESPN.com's Page 2, or at least the Daily Quickie.

• Sports Guy's World — ESPN.com Page 2 gives Bill Simmons his own index page. Say what you will about the guy — the recurrent Vegas jokes and the endless bad TV references do get tired — he is a rock star online. He's not the only one who wised up on how to write for the web — Peter King's and Paul Zimmerman's online writing styles get A's from me, as well — but he may be the best at it.

• 10 Greatest WWF Managers — The venerable Slick checks in at No. 10, and I couldn't be happier considering my recent audio find of his theme song, Jive Soul Bro. Hard to argue Heenan, Blassie and Albano in the top three spots and, really, if you argue about scripted sports entertainment, you're pretty much an idiot.

• MLB's Top Fastball's By Half-Decade — Bill James ranks the best fireballers since way before the Mets were striking out all over the place. Lets hear it for Old Hoss Radbourn, who owned the eighth-best fastball from 1880-84. They don't call James' readers nerds for nothin'.

Finally, Happy 30th Birthday, Derek Jeter: Born June 26, 1974 in Pequannock, N.J., Jeter's 1996 arrival in the Bronx marked the return of Yankee dominance. Six World Series appearances later, one can only chuckle at the boos he receives on the road. As captain and poster child of the big, bad Bombers, he's a homegrown talent who's been nothing short of a big gamer on the field and a humble role model off of it.