I rarely have the chance to watch TV these days and I'm grateful for it. Life's mundane enough with work. I don't need to saturate it with the drivel coming from the cable networks. Enough with the reality shows already.

Google Video solves that problem. Although the selection is limited, I can search on the shows that I want to watch instead of aimlessly flipping through channels. I can fast forward and rewind through shows. Best of all, since Google is bankrolling the project, it's easy and it's fast.

One of the shows that I've grown to love is Top Gear on BBC Two. In North America, shows about cars are heavily influenced by the car makers. And most of them are dedicated to NASCAR drivers and pickup trucks. Even Top Gear tries to address North America's obsession with pickup trucks. While most people who go for a walk in the American countryside are eaten by a bear; so they need a car with a gun rack, remarks the over-the-top host of the show, Jeremy Clarkson.

There are so many great episodes, I don't know where to start:

• The 414 brake horsepower Audi RS4 racing down a gorge and up a mountain in the south of France.
• An ancient Ford Transit van overtakes Lamborghinis and motorbikes on one of the world's toughest proving grounds: Nürburgring.
  
• Testing the best selling car in the world, the Ford F150 Lightning, in Britain. Faster than a Porsche Boxter complete with miserable build quality.
  
• The Porsche Cayenne Turbo sport-ute versus a British Challenger tank. Enough said.
  

Finally, the best episode has little to do with driving. One of the calmer, more intellectual hosts of the show becomes hypnotized so that he doesn't know how to drive a car. Thank goodness for quality British programming.