Meet the ring tones

This post exposes the fact that I am neither hip nor am I a true gadget technophile. Although my work deals with technology, I am not the classic geek when it comes to tech gadgets. My personal life is probably more techie than the average person, but for the most part I am low-fi. I do have an iPod (nano). I do a good deal of personal work on the computer (finances, vacation planning, etc) and have a wireless network at home. But I don't have cable, a plasma tv, or a high tech stereo system. I can barely work a conference call on the office phone. I have a manual electric can opener. But enough with this long intro....

My two year Verizon cell phone planned expired, and just in time as my cell phone's LCD panel started to "bleed" and became unusable. I can't see a damn thing on the screen.

So, I got my new phone. I got an incoming call and some bizarro music started to play so I went to set my ring tone to some normal phone-sounding tone. However, I see that this new phone gives me like 10 options, half of which sound like robotic beeps and the other half calypso music.

Can't I get some basic ring? You know, that sounds like a phone?

Ok, so I've heard of ring tones and I've read about how they are all the rage. But I honestly don't know much about them or really imagined it would be worth shelling out even 2 dollars for a ring tone. But it appears to be that or "The Saints Come Marching In" for me.

So I look around some and I enter this strange world of 8 note versions of just about everything: pop songs, tv theme songs, sounds, and even the alien welcome music from "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" (which I would have gotten if I went through with this). But I also find there are subscription services, shady looking web sites, and are some technicalities to uncover.

So after about 10 minutes, I realize I am wasting my time. And, based on principle alone, I just can't see paying for this. So, I'll just set it to vibrate.