How The Matrix Taught Me A Valuable Lesson About Cuing
by Author X
Bad ideas usually come to me pretty early in the morning. You could say, in fact, that I'm the king of bad ideas. With this in mind, I suppose it would be fair to think of my propensity for early morning thought to be something of a protection mechanism, as it's usually difficult to act on much of anything at 3 in the morning.
However one day it was with some decidedly questionable motives that I got it in my head to procure for myself a TV. Not just any TV, mind you. Not a large TV. Not even a big screen. I think 60 inches is just too small. No, I wanted the full monte, 120 inches of theatrical loveliness. Yes kids, it was time to invest in a video projector.
However these aren't just your run of the mill Sears catalog items, needless to say. They are in fact, quite the rare beast--even in this modern era of circuitry and comeuppance. But oh, how I wanted one. I hate the movie theater, you see. The flickering, the bright light, the abysmal sound system cranked to the inhuman +12 on the dial. And the patrons. Oh how I loathe the movie theater patrons. But that's for another day, and another tale.
So here I was, ready to bring the Big Screen into my own Small Living Room, and without any clue as to how exactly to do it. As I said, I couldn't just go down to the local Best Buy or Costco and pick myself up one of the stacked boxes of pre-packaged retail bliss. These are boutique items, despite their reasonably low cost (less than a true "big box" big-screen TV would set you back).
It was with this quandary that I set out to TRV my TV. After all, it's the perfect tool for finding out the answers to questions that defy all other means. Especially when I wasn't even quite sure what the question was.
So, I crafted a cue with the best of my limited cue-crafting experience. "(Me)/Optimum Video Projector/Next 60 Days". I did put my real name in of course, but that wouldn't do to repeat it here now would it? I decided upon the second part of the cue for obvious reasons, although thinking about it, perhaps "second best video projector" would have made for an interesting study. But I digress again. I had chosen a specific time for this purchase, as I was chomping at the bit to get this lovely into my living room as soon as possible (within 2 months, no later than).
And so, I dispensed this cue to my unwitting TRV-enabled friends, who dutifully wrote and sketched away, unbeknownst of the relative "foolishness" of the cue. I got back much of the data I had expected--myself and some others in my aforementioned small living room, with an object behind us, shining a bright light forward. Well, despite the accuracy of the sessions, that didn't narrow it down much, so I decided to do the target myself. I got the same types of data, and focused in on the projector itself, looking for any kind of unique identifying feature that would help me choose which model was best from among the dozen or so that I knew were out there, in my price range, and good enough to pass my stringent quality requisites.
Eventually, I did find the feature I was looking for. Two front vents, with spinning fans in them. Both my session and another featured this rather unusual (for these projectors) design. The model was clear, it was a Sony. However I knew that this particular Sony, despite being a front-runner for my ultimate choice, wasn't something I wanted to own in the long run.
So, pig-headed and already getting yet more bad ideas in the morning to act upon later, I put the sessions away and waited. I knew that the Matrix wasn't leading me wrong, especially as I had corroborating data. But something just wasn't right. Something was amiss, and I could practically smell it in the air.
Two months later, A new love came into my life. Yes children, a price break and a little extra savings put the NEC projector I really wanted, but couldn't previously afford, into my price range. Oddly, I had sketched this projector before, on a slightly different cue. With great trepidation I placed the order and waited (an entire week!) for FedEx to deliver my new toy. And it was good. Lo, the seas parted, the skies cleared, and I finally had a really, really big picture to match the big hanging screen in my small living room.
End of story right? Not really. I wanted to know (as did the steamingly mad remote viewers whom I ignored) what the real story was. If this was good, was the Sony better? Luckily, I found someone in the local area willing to demo the Sony the earlier TRV sessions had so clearly identified. My first reaction was one of surprise. It truly, terribly, and completely sucked. I would have been most unhappy with the comparatively loud noise and poor picture of this reasonably inexpensive unit. So what happened?
Well, the NEC I eventually got was, at the time, about double the cost of the Sony; well out of my reach. The Matrix obviously knew that, and gave me what was, in truth, the next best thing, which was the Sony. And then it hit me upside the head like a baseball bat. The time qualifier! Indeed, the best move for me, in the next 60 days, was the Sony! But had I waited, as I did, just 15 more days, I would have been aware of the NEC that I so truly wanted. I had crippled my own TRV TV session, and I hadn't even realized it.
So what's the moral of the story? Always watch your cues. The Matrix, while all knowing and, granting you follow the TRV protocols, always accurate to the hilt, is ultimately quite literal. It was not that the Matrix had somehow failed me, or that TRV was broken. I had simply asked the wrong question. If I had deleted the time modifier, I would have gotten the NEC in the sessions, as I did on my open-ended personal TRV TV session where I identified the unique offset nature of the NEC's lens as the discriminating physical factor.
After explaining the slip up on my end to my still somewhat smoldering TRV capable friends, they understood and hopefully learned something from my own mistake. When you ask a question of the Matrix, make sure you know what you're asking for. Because boy, you're certainly going to get it!
As I sit here in big-screen-yet-small-room theatrical bliss, I still remember the cuing error that I learned so well from. In my pursuit of optimal TRV structural perfection, I forgot about perfecting the basis of those sessions itself, the TRV cue. Simple, short, and to the point, is always what the remote viewer should strive for in the cue; no extraneous data or information. The Matrix already knows. And of course, on the flip-side, you need to be aware of any necessary constraints on the cue. To digress:
For instance, I could have easily put down, "(Me)/Optimum Projector" only, and gotten some Buck Rogers flying-spaceship-and-does-the-dishes-too unit from 2049. And being Matrix derived TRV data, it would have been correct. But ultimately useless to me at the time, just as the original 60-day cue data was ultimately useless. Because it was the right data but AT THE WRONG TIME. I don't want to know what projector I should own 50 years from now, or what projector I should have owned 50 days ago, I want to know what I should own NOW. So I should have thought about the cue more, and put down perhaps a 120-day modifier, to allow for new models and price breaks. Or, even taken a more modular approach. It may well have been that the Sony was the best I could do. Optimum is optimum, not necessarily great. I may not have wanted a projector at all if that was the best I could do. Fortunately, I did wait, and optimally I would have tried the same cue, or a similar one, after 60 days had passed to see if the results were the same. If they were, then I would have known that was the unquestionably right unit for me for the long run.
In any case, TRV did help me pick out a unit, and for that I'm grateful, even if it did take me down the garden path a little bit on the way there. Next time, I'm going to ask the right question the first time (or is that the first question at the right time?).
