记录元表中的项目数？

I'm working on a small digg-style application that will have anywhere between 20-100 items submitted each day. I need to keep a running track on how many items exist at any particular moment. I know that I don't have many records, but I still don't think performing a count() is the best method since I'll be doing this on almost every page. My idea is to create a table specifically for meta-values, like total_articles. I would then increment that value when a new story is submitted, and decrement the value when a story is deleted.I'm working on a small digg-style application t