While eliminating the scatological ones, which cuts down the list considerably, how about "loser," "failure," "drip," "weiner," "RE-tard," "scumbag," "drooler," "spazz," "jerk," "lame-o," "mouth breather," "asthematic," "four-eyes," "smelly," "stinky," or "slug"?

These are typical names used to replace "geek." Hearing them enough, we call ourselves that, too. You think any of them would sound better in the show title?

And to the person who complained about my use of "white" and said it's racism, well, the kind of prejudice we suffer is far worse than racism on several counts. Nobody stands up for geeks. The best we can hope for is that, if a non-geek girl comes upon our broken and bleeding bodies after the jocks have a bit of "fun" with us, they might show an expression of compassion before they run away. If you don't think this happens in real life, in high schools everywhere, you're self-delusional or unobservant.

Second, at least people who are the victims of race prejudice can share a mutual oppression. Geeks, because we have no social skills at all, can't commiserate with other geeks, or even find them sometimes, and so our suffering is always individual.

And finally (for now) to take a particularly appropriate example, black people could promote the notion that they were equal to whites, and point out the particular benefits of being part of black culture. Even if we geeks could get up the courage to say that, how would you react if we stood up and stated, "We're proud that we can't communicate, that we're considered offensive, and that we're easy to punch, humilate and sometimes even kill." Yeah, they'll name a holiday after that. Maybe Weasel Stomping Day.

And some of you girls want to proclaim yourselves geeks? We may be hopeless, but you're masochistic.

This last part may be a little too dark for some of you, and it is something which is not to be recommended. Heck, nearly all geeks lack the capacity or desire to do it. But when two boys made a certain Colorado high school famous for an occasion where geeks effectively fought back, even though it horrified the rest of you, inside us geeks there was a little quiet voice saying "Good. About time."

Well, no point embarassing the Almighty about His many mistakes, since a great writer in the "Hitchhiker's" universe already listed them in a trilogy of books, ending with "Well, That Just About Wraps It Up For God." Given His current choice of companions, His decline seems to be happening. And since pandering helps her keep her job on Salon, why shouldn't Havrielsky pander to Yahweh?

In a more serious vein, I don't envy the task that God's Social Advisor had this week, since both The O.C. and Top Design are part of one of the most pathetic programming genres currently on TV, GOP (Gay Oriented Programming).

And to any gay men or lesbians out there, you should know I call this programming "gay" because it panders to the stereotype that most of you loathe. A flighty nighttime soap where nobody has any real problems? Interior decoration? This stuff isn't even specific to gays; it's the kind of "happy homemaker" stuff that used to run in noontime news shows for housewives, before those shows were taken over by the standard nighttime news ethic of covering who got shot last night. It's recycled Charlotte Peters, a reference for you former Saint Louisans out there.

Part of it is commercial. Home decoration, food and fashion sells things. These shows are commercials for the products they feature, lacking only the perky music of The Price is Right and a blurb for the sponsor to complete the works. That's especially true of the most butch GOP show, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. And like all commercials, they assert that whatever is wrong with your life can be fixed by some external thing.

While you could expect something like Top Design on Bravo, who are still hoping they can play a few more riffs from the Queer Eye bonanza they hit a while ago, the nighttime soap is another thing. It seems that a lot of these hour dramas have been failing in the last season, possibly because they have failed at making us care about anybody on the show or anything that happens in it. No wonder they ended it with an earthquake; it's almost like a temper tantrum on behalf of the producers, knocking the show in the side with a two-by-four because it didn't work.