Here’s the Olympic roster count for a sampling of newspapers :

The Prima Donnas at the Washington Post, 11.

The Whiny Army of The New York Times, 10 (their tech guy was red-carded and sent home early).

The News Breakers (that’s us!), four writers and a photog - creating beautiful art from Stone Age technology.

We’re-all-about-the-shareholders Newsday, three writers and a photog.

The Evil (New York) Post, two poor souls, overworked, underpaid and harassed.

I’m sort of the on-site assignment editor here, and I don’t think I could find things to do for 11 people, except to send them out to buy me more chocolate bars. Monday is such a light schedule, I’m assigning T.J. Quinn to curling. He hasn’t heard about that yet, by the way. I’ll e-mail him, rather than tell him directly.

I have to say, Lynn Zinser of the Times is an exception to the whiny rule. She doesn’t grump much, and the other day she sent me a message with a smiley face at the end. She may be the first newspaper reporter in history to do this. I explained to her that you can make a more cynical smiley face using a bracket, like :3/4

Gary Shelton of the St. Petersburg Times tried to horn in on a serious "Gilmore Girls" discussion between me and Tom Archdeacon from the Dayton Daily News, and failed miserably. If Shelton thinks watching people beat each other up on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" is anything like worrying about Rory’s rich boyfriend, Logan, then he just doesn’t get it. I hope there’s somebody back home (Mrs. Creature? Kara? Wendy?) meticulously taping shows for me.

I got my washed clothes back from Carmen, and I’m daisy fresh again. Today, the accommodations women will return to demand their money for housing. And they may bring backup.