http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodor_(fictional_island)

There are all sorts of things that appeal here, but my favourite is the amount of time and effort that has gone into literary and graphic design on a subject that is primarily aimed at young children who can barely read and need no sophisticated metaphysics of invented worlds.

However, this has it all: etymology, topographic and diagrammatic maps, history, and fulsome linking to all possible knowledge you'd want to have about Rev W Awdry's railway series, something I remember with fondness from my youth when the stopmotion TV series was barely started, something that one set of my nephews is/was mildly obsessed with, but that is frowned upon by another brother and his wife because of the poor work-life balance exhibitted by the engines, mainly due to their quasi-slavery under the Fat Controller.

I'm inclined to agree with the latter sentiment, but I look at the description and work that's gone into the documentation of this world on Wikipedia with a sense of awe, and a feeling of the rigid 1950s world in which this is grounded and a realisation of how much things have changed.

Also, writing this, I realise how easy it would have been for me to graduate in Media Studies. This kind of drivel flows out of my fingers fast enough that I don't have to wait to think what the next word is.

Do I really need to explain?

the technology section is a particularly fun read, but it's all good

Rock Hard Abs are just a sw-sw-swivel away!

I'm stunned that someone took the time to categorize the ham-fisted attempts by sitcom writers to tackle serious issues. However, I fully admit to scanning the list and noting which ones I remember. I've seen pretty much every episode listed for Saved by the Bell and I remember watching the CPR Punky Brewster episode and thinking "Who plays hide and seek in a refrigerator?"

Another interesting trend was the number of shows that did episodes about AIDS or HIV where the point of exposure or suspected point of exposure was not sexual intercourse. If TV is to be believed, HIV infections through blood transfusions were the primary source of transmission of the disease in the '80s.

 
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"'Vengence is Mine', quoth Alvis. And then he shot the guy, right in the freaking face!"

A sample paragraph:

The onomatopoeia for a chocobo's call is "Kue" (クエ) in the original Japanese versions and is sometimes transliterated as "Kweh" in the English translation, or alternately replaced by "Wark."

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It's political correctness gone mad!