Slimeball

It's hard enough starting your own business without being accosted by slimeballs . . .

The reason I called my company Touch Talk Technologies was simple: we dealt in applications (before “apps” became the dominant descriptor) in which users used touch tones on their phones to interact with computers “who” talked to them.

Some apps were creative.

E.V.I.E. -- (stands for Electronically Voiced Information Exchange) ran on several Hawaiian Islands. Tourists could call 742-EVIE to get info on activities, restaurants, shops and entertainment venues. EVIE routed callers directly to reservation desks, saving providers the 15-to-35 percent fees normally charged by activities desks.

Homework Hotline made it easy for teachers to leave messages for parents and students each day, outlining homework assignments or upcoming tests or field trips. When Johnny comes home and Mom or Dad asks if he has any homework, they already know the answer. Callers were subjected to a 10-second “sponsored by” tag line. They could get more info with the touch of a button. This app was installed in dozens of schools throughout Oahu.

SuperPhone was the perfect virtual secretary, although it couldn’t make a decent cup of coffee to save its life. It allowed each user to set up to 900 clients, friends, family members and associates, with their own private, two-way voicemail mini-accounts. For $9.95 a month, you could tell SuperPhone who you wanted to reach you, where, and under what circumstances. You could even have it call you at a pay phone or on someone else’s phone if your battery died.

Member Verification was the fastest, most reliable source for HMOs and PPOs to determine if someone in their waiting room was still covered by Blue Cross or MetLife or CareFirst -- three HMO clients who relied on the system. After entering a four-digit provider code and the number on the person’s membership card, it would immediately tell you if that person was covered, and if so, how much copay to charge.

The Heart/Health Age Appraisal system adapted Loma Linda University’s analysis of the Framingham database into an easy-to-use way to determine your chances of dying from anything over the next 10 years. It also allowed you to see how your chances changed if you changed one or more risk factors -- like cutting back to a pack a day, or eating a healthy breakfast. During the first week of operation in the Washington, D.C. area, the system logged more than 10,000 calls a day!

Global Language Learning made it possible for Japanese commuters to learn conversational English via their cell phones during their daily 45-minute commutes to and from work every day on Japan’s extensive train system.

But the app that introduced me to Slimeball was MovieLine.

Take Washington, D.C. for example. In that metropolis there are more than 100 theater screens. Typically, it took a page and a half in The Washington Post to list what was playing where.

MovieLine offered a cheaper, more versatile approach.

First, it had callers touch tone in the three-digit prefix for their land line. This was back when landlines were still all-pervasive. MovieLine then knew approximately where your base of operations was.

Using the letters on your touch-tone keypad, you then started to spell the name of the movie you were interested in. Usually by the third or fourth letter, MovieLine knows what you’re looking for and would tell you when that movie was playing at the three theaters closest to you, as well as what each theater charged.

How does that generate revenue? . . .

When you go to the movies, there’s always a 10-to-15 minute (or more) wait, where you loiter in the lobby, buy popcorn or just wait for the doors to open after the previous crowd clears out and the custodians have had their way. That’s when you browse those “Coming Soon" attraction preview posters.

What would it be worth to a car company like Tesla or GM (Tesla wasn’t an option then, but would be a great choice if it were!) -- to be the only poster in the theater promoting anything but a movie?

A hundred screens process more than 100,000 viewers -- each week! Make that a half million each month. At two cents per person, we’re talking $10,000 a month for total exclusivity for a captive audience with nothing better to do than absorb what you have to say for yourself! Cars, clothes, watches, department stores -- the possible clients are endless!

I spoke with several theater managers in the D.C. area. They had no problem trading wall space to be part of the system.

So that was the set up. Cut a deal with AMC Theaters and we could be in hundreds of theater complexes across the country with a single signature! Book some national advertisers and we’re in business! The beauty of the beast is that the theaters themselves would be tasked with updating their own offerings each week!

After the code was demonstrable, my staff and I booked reservations at the annual movie convention being held that year in Virginia -- a reasonably short drive from D.C.

I didn’t know they even had places like this -- one hotel -- out in the middle of nowhere (literally!) with something like 1,250 rooms, natural hot springs, horseback riding, golf courses (plural!). The weekend program featured previews of movies that wouldn’t run for another six months to a year.

We had T-shirts screen printed with our name and logo, brochures to hand out, business cards -- the works -- only to find that almost nobody comes to these things to conduct business. It’s just an excuse to write off a fun-filled weekend as a business expense!

The only business I heard about was Pepsi. It’s rep played a round of golf with the CEO of AMC. On the 18th hole the Pepsi guy bets the CEO $100,000 on a 27-foot putt.

If Pepsi Man misses, AMC’s CEO pockets the cash. If he makes it, AMC pulls Coke and puts Pepsi throughout the entire chain . . .

Pepsi makes the putt!

OK. So we’d have to market MovieLine after we got back. We’d already paid for the rooms. We decided to stay and enjoy ourselves and write it off -- watch a few way-in-the-future features, ride a horse, sit in a hot spring and play their Steinway grand piano at 2:00 o’clock in the morning at the end of an empty hallway. A good (albeit expensive) time was had by all . . .

Back at the ranch -- or rather my basement office in a retired bank building in Takoma Park, Maryland, just north of the district line -- I return from lunch to find a grubby-looking, oily-haired, fat guy sitting in what, to me, was my expensive office chair. His tie is undone. The top two buttons on his wrinkled what-once-was-a-white shirt are unbuttoned. He has a rather worn, beat-up, leather briefcase on his lap. He doesn’t even get up when I walk in.

“Are you Dave Ruskjer?” he asks, not bothering to identify himself.

“Who wants to know?” I figure two can play this game.

Without answering, he holds up my now-grease-smudged business card, “Is this your company?”

“And if I say yes?” I challenge.

“Well, if this is yours, and you are you, you owe me a shitload of money!” he sneers.

“Is that so?” I say, still standing. “How do you figure?”

“You use touch tones to access information. Am I right?”

“So?”

"So, I own the patent on that technology. Anybody using it has to pay me a licensing fee. It ain’t cheap and I’m here to collect.”

“You don’t say,” I say.

He presses the attack: “You know how pilots can call up the weather just by touch-toning the three-letter airport code?”

Having taken flying in college, I’m familiar with that particular application.

“Go on. I’m listening,” I say.

“They pay me a licensing fee.”

"Nice for you,” I quip.

“And you’re gonna start paying me, too. Or I’ll shut you down.”

“You might wanna back that up with something in writing before you go shooting your mouth off all over my office,” I suggest.

“Not a problem,” he says, as he opens his beat-up briefcase. He pulls out a 42-page document. “Read it and weep,” he says, shoving it in my face.

I look at the cover.

It certainly appears to be issued by the Patent Office.

The preamble more or less says what he’s already stated -- the use of touch tones to access data blah, blah, blah.

He seems perfectly content to sit there while I read through the whole thing -- which I have every intention of doing. I want to see the nitty-gritty as to how -- specifically -- data is retrieved under his patent.

“What are you looking for?” he says. “Maybe I can save you some time.”

“Maybe,” I say. “I’m specifically looking for what data retrieval techniques you allegedly own the rights to.”

“All of them,” he smirks. “And there’s nothing alleged about it. There’s only two.”

“Really? Perhaps you’d care to elucidate that for me.”

“There’s two problems with touch tones,” he lectures. “First, there’s the matter of the letters ‘Q’ and Z’ -- they’re not there. It’s not that bad -- most words don’t even use them. ‘Q’ can be squeezed between ‘P’ and “RS’ on the ‘7’ key.”

“I’m familiar with that key,” I say, not hiding my sarcasm that well.

“‘Z’ can go at the end of ‘WXY’ on the ‘9’ key,” he continues. “That’s not the problem though.”

He’s on a roll . . .

He pauses long enough to pull a greasy handkerchief out of his back pocket to wipe the oily sweat from his forehead.

“The problem is, when you press a key like the ‘2’ key with ‘ABC’ on it, how does the computer know you meant to hit an ‘A’ and not the ‘B’ or ‘C’?”

“I suppose you’re gonna tell me,” I say.

By now I’ve assumed a defensive, arms-folded-across-my-chest posture, maintaining a bored look on my face.

“There are only two ways -- and I own the patent for both of them,” he grins conspiratorially.

‘Proceed,” I say, with an appropriate hand gesture.

“The FAA opted to use the asterisk, zero, and pound sign. If, when you press the ‘2’, you mean the ‘A,’ press ‘2’ followed by the asterisk. For ‘B,’ follow the ‘2’ with a zero. For ‘C’ --”

“I got it. The other approach?” I make a show of looking at my watch, implying that my time is valuable.

“The other involves how many times you press a key. For ‘A’ you press the ‘2’ key once. For ’B,’ twice--”

“Don’t tell me, let me guess,” I interrupt. “Is that it then?”

“That’s all there is,” he says, as he wipes his whole face with that same oily rag -- a satisfied grin on his face. “So let’s talk terms.”

“I think," I say, with some deliberation, “that I’m not covered by your patent.”

I hand him back his wrinkled, smudged copy.

A startled look spreads across his face. “That’s impossible! These are the only two ways -- and I own them both!”

So you say,” I reply calmly.

“You're extracting data for MovieLine. You have to be using one of them!”

“I don’t ‘have to’ and I don’t.” I remain calm.

“I believe you know the way to the door. Think how you came in, then do the exact opposite.”

I can’t help it. I don’t even know this guy. I just know I don’t like him.

Without making any attempt to get up, he says, “At least explain your system to me.”

"OK,” I say, lecturing down to him from my still standing position. “A user ‘types’ the name of the movie he’s interested in, using the letters on his phone -- and, yes, I include the ‘Q’ as part of the ‘PRS’ key and the ‘Z’ at the end of the ‘WXY’ button -- but after reviewing your documents, I find that that’s not part of your patent. Usually by the third or fourth keystroke the system responds with the nearest showing.”

“But how does it know which letter the person pushed?” he asks, almost frantic now.

Persistent little bugger, I think. “I have Jeanne Dixon on retainer,” I quip, straight-faced.

“No, seriously.”

For the first time in our exchange, he looks receptive to being civilized, willing to carry on an open and honest conversation.

“Look,” I say. “There are a limited number of titles in a given market. Say you want to see Raiders of the Lost Ark. You press the ‘7” key -- that’s the one with an ‘R’ on it. Of the titles showing at 100 theaters in the D.C. area, most of them won’t start with ‘P,’ ‘R,’ or ‘S,’ so you've eliminate them with one key press. Next you hit the ‘2’ key to get an ‘A.’ More titles go away. By the time you follow that with the ‘4’ for your ‘I,’ you’ve all but eliminated the rest of the titles.

“Someone looking for Roxanne would press ‘7’ for ‘R,’ ‘6’ for ‘O,’ then ‘9’ for the ‘X’ -- much simpler than either of your approaches. It skips the ‘door number 1, 2 or 3’ sub-selection process entirely and requires no key-stuttering,” I say, as I nod towards the door.

The man is visibly shaken. What color he had when he came in, has already left the building. He just sits there like Jabba the Hutt, minus the undulations of the bikini-clad Princess Lea.

Slowly he lifts his gaze from the worthless patent papers in his lap up to me. Dripping with humility, he asks, “Could you use any help?”

I can’t believe this guy! I just point to the door.

I look at Carmen Miranda, my office manager. “Can you believe he had the nerve to ask if he could work here, after trying to shake me down like that?!”

She shakes her head in mutual disbelief.

“Well, at least now you can sit down.” She gestures towards my freed-up chair.

I reposition it.

Just before sitting down, I notice a shiny, blackish snail-trail down the center of the cloth seat.

“He slimed me!” I shriek. “He actually slimed me!”

“Road trip!” Carmen exclaims, as she gets her coat and purse. “Hey, maybe we should get a patent leather chair this time!” she chides.