Observations and inanities by a second-shift assistant supervisor in the Puppy-Grinding division of the Evil Atheist Conspiracy® (our motto: "Sure it's cruel, but think of the jobs!"), your host, Brent Rasmussen.
Oh! I wanna be a pyramid when I die!
Via the Slog, comes word of how 400 Tons of pressure can solve your little corpse problem:
Finally, a Tasteful and Creative Alternative to Cremation
Welcome to Compacted Dignity, the markets best alternative for departed loved ones, who can not be cremated.
If your loved one was Catholic, or one of a great number of other strict religions that prohibit cremation, you are undoubtedly faced with a number of difficult decisions in the realm of good planning and putting to rest the remains of the departed.
An unfortunate reality of this difficult time is the substantial expense associated with ones passing which can include the cost of a casket, burial plot, funeral services, not to mention the upkeep. For most people, it would be ideal and the most considerate option for you, if you could cremate the individual, but as a people of faith, no matter how silly your religion might seem to others, you simply can't incinerate your beloved.
The whole site is brilliant. Well, if you have a sick and twisted sense of humor, as I do...
Jim Downey
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Seriously, though
the green burial or a variant seems the best. My own wish is to be mulched and used for fertilizer. Probably illegal as well as unsanitary, but a guy can dream, right?
If I could really have my way, I would be used as fertilizer for a food crop, maybe tomatoes. After the harvest, my loved ones could consume my produce if they wished, but a small sacrificial amount would be left aside. If my wishes were carried out in full, this remainder would then be delivered in a most neighborly manner to the enemies I had in life, with a simple handwritten note reading "Eat Me. Love, Neil"
It's been done...
They're really just finishing the good work that was started by Angus Scrimm playing the Tall Man in the Phantasm movies. Do you suppose they could squash me down to a reduced size E.T. looking sort of dwarf thing like in the movies? Do I get a flying steel bloodletting ball of death with my purchase? And most importantly, are the staff members sufficiently creepy-looking?
Yogi Berra
Lawrence Peter "Yogi" Berra was once asked where he wanted to be buried. He replied "surprise me". Those are pretty much my feelings. Who cares what happens after I die? Use my organs please, I don't need them anymore. My attitude drives my sister nuts. She wants everyone in our family to buy burial plots in the graveyard where my mom and other sister are buried. I have tried to explain the fact that I don't believe in the afterlife to her, but it just gets her upset. The discussion usually ends with her saying, "I will pray for you."
Green
I told my wife that I wanted a 'green' burial. Ideally after harvesting everything useful from my body and if they don't need any more cadavers for science classes I would just as soon be buried, sans coffin, in the woods somewhere. Your molecules can take the short path back to the biosphere or the long path. The short path seems preferable to me. It's not like they were unique to me anyway, we are all cobbled together out of used parts.
blue
Same here, except my request is to be dropped into the ocean. If it pans out that Iron pilings really will cause algal blooms (which will munch on yummy CO2) than I'd like some iron galoshes.
"If there is evil in this world, it lurks within the hearts of men" ~Edward D. Morrison, Tales of Phantasia
C'mon, Dirk...
...Yogi Berra said no such thing. It was Mark Twain.
-Col.
All the best...
All the best quotes are. At least, that's how I attribute them. ;)
Jim Downey
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Like Science Fiction? Read my novel, Communion of Dreams, for free.
Yogi Berra's famed quotes
I wish everyone could get their attributes right. I mean, Dirk didn't even mention Berra's most famous quote: "Hey, hey; Mr. Ranger will have to get his own pic-i-nic basket, Booboo."
At the risk of
At the risk of sounding stupid, why is it that Catholics do not wish to be cremated ? Is it because it would be harder for Jayzus to put 'em back together after the resurrection? Actually this is the reason my mother doesn't wish for me to be cremated as I wish, "Well how are you going to be resurrected then?"
But Catholics DO allow cremation...
...as long as it is not considered by the deceased one or the relatives as a denial of the dogma of the resurrection of the dead at the end of times, or something like that. I think it's even written in the Cathecism, but I don't have the reference at hand.
Being dehydrated and compressed in a cube... it's not very dignity-inspiring for me.
I want to buried like
I want to buried like Bender's uncle from that Futurama episode with the Werecar: Surrounded by styrofoam, and placed in a box stamped return to sender.
Even though it's not totally
Even though it's not totally related... The mentioning of cremation and pyramids in the same entry just gave me a terrible, horrible, awful, wonderful idea. Ashes embedded in orgonite. Ohhh, the money that would be in it for someone who wouldn't be creeped out by a) random dead peoples' ashes or b) the kind of people who buy orgonite -- with or without ashes involved.
But anyway. Cuboidal parcel of loved one? Brilliant!