Y2K: The 1K Post

One thousand posts for the little site that could. Honestly, if you'd have told Sip, a bored paralegal back in October 2005, that the site he created to pass the time at work would make it to 1,000 unique posts and still be around almost four years later in July 2009, I'm not sure he'd have believed you.

I joined Y2K shortly after its inception. When I joined I was a fresh-faced college graduate working a paralegal position at the same financial firm I work at today. Like Sip I was mostly bored out of my mind.

For most of my life I'd been a journalist. I started at the high school newspaper with a piece on the junior varsity tennis team at the bequest of Nails (the rising Editor-in-Chief, and Sip, the rising "Sports Editor").

From there I went on to become Editor-in-Chief of my high school paper. In college I orked for the paper all four years, ultimately becoming Editor-in-Chief there, too (succeeding Nails once again). The summer before my senior year, a year before Y2K started, I worked at a local newspaper covering mostly baseball, but also wrote tennis articles, profiles, and fall sports previews.

When I started working I felt suffocated without the creative outlet that writing provides for me. I needed something, and all of a sudden, thanks to Sip, there was Y2K.

* * * * *

Sip and I have been best friends for a long time. We grew up across the street from one another, and met mostly through West Side Little League competition. Sip came to my school when he was in third grade and I was in second.

The rules of the schoolyard being what they are, two kids from different grades couldn't actually be friends until much later, but around Sip's junior year, my sophomore year, we started spending a LOT of time together. I'd basically head across the street, park on the couch he had in his bedroom, and we'd watch the Mets, watch a movie, maybe drink a 40, whatever, just kind of waste time.

When he started Y2K on October 12, 2005 I was on the initial e-mail launching the site, but I wasn't involved in any way, but I knew immediately that I wanted to be involved. So I offered to edit his pieces before they went up on the site, and he was happy with that arrangement. I can't remember which was the first post I edited, but I want to say it was within the first two weeks.

When the site began it was almost entirely about hating the Yankees. I hated the Yankees, but what I could write about (and write about and write about) was the Mets. I figured the same people reading the site because they hated the Yankees probably were big fans of the Mets, so I asked Sip if I could write a piece every now and then.

Dubbing myself "this site's answer to Doug Mientkiewicz," on October 25, 2005 I made my debut. It took a little while for me to become a regular at the site, but I was hooked.

Corny as it may sound, writing for the site filled a need within me, and it still does. That's why even without Sip and Cheddar Ben writing on the regular anymore, I can't let the site go. Maybe if/when I go to business school two years from now I'll put down my pen, but so long as I'm working I can't imagine not doing this.

It's a creative outlet and it's a diary in a way. I love picking a random month from way back when and seeing what was on my mind or what I'd done that day.

* * * * *

A lot of things have changed over the course of these first 1,000 posts. Sip, Ched, and I aren't fresh-faced recent college grads anymore. The Mets don't play at Shea anymore, and to echo Ched's point from the other day, they aren't that good anymore.

But for me, the compelling reasons to write for the site don't change no matter what else I have going on.

These first 1,000 posts have been a gas. Here's looking at the next 1,000.

- A.F.O.M.G.