It’s not like we’re approaching Methuselahan standards around here, but it is DCist’s sixth birthday today. On September 7, 2004, founding editors Rob Goodspeed and Mike Grass made things official and went live with the fifth city site in the Gothamist network — and what begun as a humble operation with five bloggers has truly blossomed into a full-time operation which features the work of nearly 40 contributors and photographers.

Since we know that you guys love numbers, here are the vitals: over the last six years, we’ve posted 21,780 times and have read 226,995 of your comments.

Of course, our success is due to our dedicated and interactive readers, without whom we’d just be yelling about tea partiers, Molly, rock throwing kids and touchy indie bands in a vacuum. Many thanks to all of you for sticking around with us as we make that awkward transition from a youthful, idealistic blog into a cranky, middle-aged blog.

Now, if you’ll excuse us, we’ve got whale cake to enjoy.