Is there a Visual Studio plugin to highlight a block of text, like in Microsoft Word?

I don't mean a single word, or every occurrence of a particular word... I'm talking about the ability to select a block of text, like a method, or a series of methods and highlight the background in a particular colour...

Like this:

http://freewindowsvistatutorials.com/programsAndApplications/microsoftWord2007/colorMarkerHighlightText.php

I personally don't really like regions, they look untidy most of the time and they add to the problem almost as much as they solve it sometimes.

Is there anything like this?

VS10x Code Map, it's good but not for free