Getting text read aloud

One of the things I looked forward to about Mac OS X Leopard was its excellent new voice Alex, which is a big step forward in computer voices from the old ones. I imagined I'd have it read long text from the web, then import it to iTunes and get it read from my iPod during a walk or in my bed.
But doing this is so tedious that I just don't do it.

But now I found an Automator macro which does it all automatically! And it does not even need the time to actually have the text-to-speech facility read the text aloud, somehow that step is skipped. I just tested it, it worked perfectly first time. Just select and copy the desired text, and run the macro, and boom, scant seconds later the sound file sits in iTunes for you. Kewl.

Here's the file of it reading the text above. (It can't separate present tense "read" from past tense "read", it seems. Ah well.)

Tip: "songs" made for iTunes like this (or many other ways) do not automatically remember how far you've played them, like audiobooks do. This can be fixed by selecting the "song" in iTunes, selecting Get Info in the popup menu, and under options selecting "remember playback position".

Update: I'm testing Infovox' voices. They're maybe a little smoother, but I'm not sure they are worth 99 bucks. Before Leopard it would have been a clearer choice.