the language politics of 'geek'

the word "geek" is appearing a lot in the news. they've even noticed it over at slashdot. i noticed it too, like when the news story i was watching said "blog geeks," and then on that show Foreign Exchange with Fareed Zakaria, he said something about geeks.

None of this stuff was particularly mean spirited.

I just feel like, "hey, don't call us that. That's our word."

does that mean the word "geek" needs to mutate?

any suggestions? "gik" ? "geeka"? "gee"? "gook"? whoa now. that bit of ironic racism is already taken i think. so....i give up.