Becoming More Worldly: Learning Geography Online

Most folks in my life know that I have a horrid sense of direction, in the physical/literal sense. While the goals of my life are sometimes amorphous, they are still more distinct than my knowledge of how to get to a local bar without first driving past my apartment.

As I travel more and more of the world, my ignorance of countries, capitals, and key facts is becoming more than a little embarrassing. To that end, I've searched the web for tools to help me learn geography. The following is a listing of the items I found most useful:

• Shepard Software's Online Geography Tutorials & Quizzes - This is probably the best resource I've found to date. Quizzes are offered in levels of increasing difficulty, starting first with a tutorial that identifies the countries and ending with a quiz where you drag, rotate, size, and name countries onto a blank map.
• Setera - This is a free program that you can install on your computer. This quizzing features are nice, and include country flags and capitals. However it really assumes a prior knowledge of country names and geography.

I was hoping to find a "Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego?" equivalent for adults. As yet, no joy.

Do you have any tips on how to quickly learn more about world geography, history, and culture? I feel like I must have slept through those classes in elementary school, and I didn't take them in high school. Comments are welcome.