Half a croissant, on a plate, with a sign in front of it saying '50c'
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ad-break button

yes, I know I spend too much time channel surfing
 
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This often happens to me - I'm watching TV just surfing, flipping from one channel to the next till I find something that momentarily engages my attention. No sooner do I find said attraction, however, than *pop* it's time for the ad break (commercial break for our American cousins).

Since I'm quite sensibly averse to watching ads, I take this as my cue to resume flipping, the idea being to pass the time of the break by checking out the other channels.

The trouble is, above a certain number of channels, it doesn't take me long to forget what channel I was interested in. So I end up going round and round, or get into something else, or come back to it too late.

What I need is an 'ad break' button on the remote control. Say I'm watching 'Planet Earth' on channel 205 and totally getting into the whole nature thing, but then *ding* ad-break ! No problem - I hit the button and it simply remembers what channel I'm on. I then go surfing the other channels; but the clever television will wait a set number of minutes (the average duration of an ad-break) and then remind me what channel I was watching.

I can then decide whether I want to go back to the enchanting Mr. Attenborough, or whether the all-night infomercial on channel 475 about the exercise machine that "goes side-to-side as well as up and down!" is just too enthralling for me to miss.

bumhat, Feb 04 2007

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       Some cable boxes have 2 tuners so you can set one on one channel and then surf with the other and go back to the other tunner. I don't know if this is what you mean or not though.
acurafan07, Feb 04 2007
  

       I believe this is why PIP was invented. The problem can also be solved less expensively using a notepad and an egg timer.
sqykly, Feb 04 2007
  

       Switch it off and come back to the 'bakery.
pertinax, Feb 05 2007
  
      
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