Apple has a new feature for the iPhone. See a song on iTunes that you like? Click and turn it into a ringtone! The only problem is that you have to pay 99 cents for the song, and then another 99 cents for the privilege of making it a ringtone. Who is the ad wizard who thought that one up? Or was that one for the "We'll give it a shot and see how many people actually do it before the bad press gets too overwhelming" pile?

Naturally this has started up a flurry of "How to get free ringtones for your iPhone" articles, which in turn has spawned articles for "Get free ringtones even if you don't have an iPhone."

Over a year ago I simply got a phone that actually supports MP3 ringtones (a Motorola v360, to be specific). And then it was a simple matter of getting them on the phone. Easy easy. My ringtone is Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 ("Shall I compare thee to a summer's day...") as sung by David Gilmour, of Pink Floyd. The uber-cool thing is that my 5 and 3 yr olds can now both sing that song, referring to it as the song that Daddy's phone sings.

I suggested that my 5yr old sing it for her new kindergarten teacher, but then it dawned on me that her teacher would probably have no idea what she was hearing.