Half a croissant, on a plate, with a sign in front of it saying '50c'
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Commercial Break Clock

Do I have time to throw my laundry in the dryer before Macgyver comes back on?
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Real simple: at the start of each commercial break on TV, a little time-clock appears in the corner of your screen, informing you exactly how long the commercial break will last, and counts down until the program comes back on. This way you can time your piss-breaks and snack runs accordingly. Perhaps it even has an audio feature to alert you if you're in another room. [note: this is slightly different than the picture-in-picture technology offered on fancy TVs, as it gives a time count so you don't have to keep running back into the room to see if your show's on.][another note: as this totally defeats the purpose of television advertising, TV manufacturer's and advertisers would never let it get produced. oh well.]
Burden, Apr 18 2001

Freebie Counseller http://www.halfbake...eebie_20Counselling
Maybe a freebie counseller could explain to the viewer the benefits of paying a subscription to a TV channel instead. [Aristotle, Apr 18 2001, last modified Oct 04 2004]

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       This would be extra handy for people with TiVos or Replays. Slap on some OCR, and never see another commercial again!
wiml, Apr 19 2001
  

       i know vcr manufacturers have developed vcrs which don't record commercial breaks-but as you suggest, not very popular with the advertisers! anyway, a lot of the time the adverts are better than the programmes that they interrupt so, maybe the timer should be the other way round...
anselda, Apr 19 2001
  

       waugsqueke - But then I'd leave the TV on all day with no-one watching it so I could rack up some ad-credit which I then use by zapping the ads when I *am* at home.
Someone has to pay for your TV programming; I'd prefer it to be advertisers (whose output I never watch and don't respond to anyway) than me.
angel, Apr 24 2001
  

       A friend's TV had a button marked "CS" [probably for 'Commercial skip']. Pressing this button would start a 30 second timer in the corner of the screen (or add 30 seconds to it if it was already running). When the timer expired, the TV would automatically set the channel back to the one that had been selected when the CS button was first pushed.
supercat, Apr 24 2001
  

       ***Anselda's remark about advertising and pie.***   

       ANSELDA!!!   

       "adverts are better than the programmes that they interrupt so, maybe the timer should be the other way round..."   

       That can't be true, i hate adverts they are all badly made and demeening to my intelligence.   

       I'm not going to buy insurance from a company that can afford to advertise. It means they are uneconomical meaning they are more of a fraud than other companies.   

       I don't judge a product by it's value or brand either, but by it's quality and unless your buying music or art the only way to judge it's quality is by reading the ingredients and squeezing it in it's packet. Food adverts are not factual.   

       I am not extremely rich, i am a consumer like everyone else. Except my fellow consumers seem to lack in logic at the dumbness of adverts. So their annoyance continues.   

       I think advertising only works for hardware and appliances as new ones are coming out every day and i want to know which new products are worth buying and which are not. In fact those are the only adverts i watch providing it comes immediately after a programme without the symbol of the channel popping up for a second after the programme intermediates. Other wise i change the channel and flick back every 30 seconds or find another rival channel i find more interesting.   

       I like pie. My favourite is stuck between chicken and asparagus pie and chicken and mushroom pie, with a creamy filling. The pie which is stuck between these 2 pies is a blueberry pie with a choco-marshmallow coating.
0_owaffleo_0, Mar 17 2003
  
      
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