In the Tel-Art-Phone film I did, Mat is standing in front of Tim Youd's "Vibrating Super Cunt".
There was no tournament last year because M-Tel, the Bulgarian phone company that sponsors it, instead financed the world championship match between Viswanathan Anand and Veselin Topalov.
Telling strangers your phone number, address, etc. can be very dangerous.
Sponsors, including I.B.M. and M-tel, Bulgaria's mobile phone company, have put up a purse of about $2.7 million, with 60 percent going to the winner.
"We're now able to dream of competing with Verizon on a much larger scale," said D. Gregory Smith, the chief executive of Z-Tel, which provides local phone service to 135,000 residential customers in New York.
"Telling the public about the phone dragnet didn't expose a legitimate state secret", writes Conor Friedersdorf of the Atlantic.
"Do you want to phone your girlfriend?" "Well, I telled Gabriel to do that.
Z-Tel is one of several dozen small phone companies looking for a share of the vast phone market.
Z-Tel is also taking on other regional phone giants like Verizon Communications, based in New York, and SBC Communications, the parent of Ameritech, based in San Antonio, using direct mail and advertising on radio and television.
"Telling my mum what had happened on the phone was difficult," he said.
The top money managers were buyers of Tampa, Fla.-based Z-Tel Technologies, which provides local and long-distance phone service.
