We "premined" about 1000 blocks (1,024,000 coins) while establishing the block chain prior to going live.  Currently at 82518 blocks, so a drop in the bucket.  No special blocks either - its a clean coin (which you can confirm with the block chain viewer of your choice).

It was a choice... we wanted to establish a number of checkpoint records to help avoid any early forks which happen so often when fast zero-premine coins hit the market.  We believe it was the right choice, although our recent 1CRedit coin was 100% premine free.  Alas, it has much longer block times, and higher confirm counts, and was also not pre-announced, so has not had any problems.

Cassey