that was really good, actually.

And shocking. Yeesh!

You only live once right? (Insert Laugh Track)

what the hell is wrong with soylent green? Probably more Kosher that USDA beef.

I owe it to the planet to have my corpse run through a chipper, unembalmed, and blown onto the forest floor.

My choice is to just dematerialize at will. But I haven't advanced far enough to disassemble my own atomic structure.

I intend to survive long enough to enjoy developing medical advancements that will push death further and further away.

Cremation makes sense. Just need a nearby Ralph's... and wait until a Santa Ana to scatter the ashes.

I hear you can be converted into compost in Sweden. I'd like to have a tree planted in my......compost pile, whatever you'd call my remains at that point. My mom and dad, unfortunately, think I'm joking........I'm wondering at the nuclear explosion when they figure out I'm not going the lead-lined option.

Do you people ever stop whining, health care, global warming, diversity, shut the fuck up!

chris @ 17:

Do you people ever stop whining, health care, global warming, diversity, shut the fuck up!

How is discussing life whining? Want to explain that logic?

Didn't think so. Next.

Beau Jangles @ 6:

"In the UK you can have your ashes turned into 250 pencils" ???

I have to stop chewing on pencils. *ptoo ptoo*

Yep, and there is one company in Chicago that can turn your ashes into diamonds through an industrial process, and another in Minnesota that can mix your ashes into concrete to make a nice garden bench.

My brother-in-law said he wants to be cremated and have his ashes spread over an open air food court. :)

I'm assuming the local health authorities won't allow my family to leave my body on the compost pile to return to nature gradually, so they're gonna have to do something. A wood-fueled funeral pyre wouldn't be adding anything to the carbon load of the planet. I'm kinda partial to the old Viking tradition of being shoved out to sea in my boat with my body laid out on a big pile of kindling and having the folks on shore shoot flaming arrows at me. Big spectacle points and a quiet sense of accomplishment for the successor who scores the winning shot...

L.A. Confidential @ 26:

Brad @ 20:

Keeping my nervous system healthy is crucial, and suicide is anyone's option. Ever heard of stem cells? nanotech?

L.A. Confidential @ 16:

Brad @ 11:

Even if your a living vegetable?

No thanks. Make it quick for me.

Yes I have I'm not a redneck idiot or religious freak.

I'm all for scientific advancement. As long as it is used to help people and not a tool-method to put money into the pockets of corrupt racketeers and politicians.

Glad I could refresh your memory then.

Different Anonymous @ 2:

If you want to talk about scams one could also look at the wedding "industry". YIKES!

Yeah... I heard that the average wedding in the US now costs $50,000. I'd rather get two cars or a down payment on a house for that amount of money.

Brad @ 29:

L.A. Confidential @ 26:

Brad @ 20:

Keeping my nervous system healthy is crucial, and suicide is anyone's option. Ever heard of stem cells? nanotech?

L.A. Confidential @ 16:

Yes I have I'm not a redneck idiot or religious freak.

I'm all for scientific advancement. As long as it is used to help people and not a tool-method to put money into the pockets of corrupt racketeers and politicians.

Glad I could refresh your memory then.

Thanks. I appreciate it.

seevee @ 32:

L.A. Confidential @ 28:

Blue Buddha @ 25:

My brother-in-law said he wants to be cremated and have his ashes spread over an open air food court. :)

I'm probably going to go that route. Ashes can go anywhere I won't need them nor will I be attached to them by any means. Unless Keith Richards wants to snort them.

:-)

After cremation you don't get "ashes," you get powdery, crunchy residual. My bud Creature and I went to Sun Valley to spread my mom around in the bars and Trail Creek, got f'd up and put some of mom on our salad. Crunchy.

Sheesh you best be glad that didn't get on the local news.

L.A. Confidential @ 35:

seevee @ 32:

L.A. Confidential @ 28:

Blue Buddha @ 25:

I'm probably going to go that route. Ashes can go anywhere I won't need them nor will I be attached to them by any means. Unless Keith Richards wants to snort them.

:-)

After cremation you don't get "ashes," you get powdery, crunchy residual. My bud Creature and I went to Sun Valley to spread my mom around in the bars and Trail Creek, got f'd up and put some of mom on our salad. Crunchy.

Sheesh you best be glad that didn't get on the local news.

We were discrete..... in a f'd up kind of way.

my death plan is very green. any tissues for transplant harvested then off to the nearest med. training or research facility---anything left to be made into delicious nutritious solent green.

In Tibet, because they're up in the mountains, they can't bury bodies, and there aren't enough tress to get a decent funeral pyre going. So what they do is take the body to a mountain side, tie it to a huge boulder, hack it to pieces, and toss the remains on a pile of bones in front of the boulder as vulture chow.

I don't want worm d00ds chomping on me

L.A. Confidential @ 19:

chris @ 17:

Do you people ever stop whining, health care, global warming, diversity, shut the fuck up!

How is discussing life whining? Want to explain that logic?

------------------
l.a. is o.k. sometimes but sadly (teehee) lacks a sense of humor (humour for you englanders)

This post bears only a tenuous relation to the death industry, although steps the African airlines are taking may either reduce or increase the burial demands in those countries.

Some of you may have noticed the item yesterday about the Antwerp police force hiring blind police officers, armed and authorized to make arrests. I thought it was a spoof, until I checked it out and found that blind officers were of great assistance in analyzing surveillance tape, due to their increased sensitivity to sound and resulting ability to identify background and others noises on recordings.

Well, today, Zimbabwe airlines announced it is hiring blind pilots, because 'Their increased awareness of sounds will enable them to identify incipient failure of aircraft components, for example engines, prior to their actual failure, and thus avoid crashes'. Zimbabwe expects that this 'May reduce the number of crashes of Zimbabwe airline aircraft by as much as 50%'.

Another benefit of hiring blind pilots is that they have not been much in demand, and thus are available at lower salaries than sighted pilots, which will help offset rising fuel costs, thus keeping Zimbabwe airline ticket prices competitive.

But I wonder if they've thought this through. Let's say a blind pilot, due to his acute hearing, notices that one of his engines is facing immediate failure. It would be appropriate for him to take corrective action, which, one would presume, would include landing the aircraft.

Is it just me, or does anyone else see a potential problem here?

Alpo could solve the problem.

Beau Jangles @ 34:

I want to be embalmed, then dropped in a well on a ranch in Crawford, Texas.

and the WINNER IS :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Preacher Boob @ 47:

This post bears only a tenuous relation to the death industry, although steps the African airlines are taking may either reduce or increase the burial demands in those countries.

Some of you may have noticed the item yesterday about the Antwerp police force hiring blind police officers, armed and authorized to make arrests. I thought it was a spoof, until I checked it out and found that blind officers were of great assistance in analyzing surveillance tape, due to their increased sensitivity to sound and resulting ability to identify background and others noises on recordings.

Well, today, Zimbabwe airlines announced it is hiring blind pilots, because 'Their increased awareness of sounds will enable them to identify incipient failure of aircraft components, for example engines, prior to their actual failure, and thus avoid crashes'. Zimbabwe expects that this 'May reduce the number of crashes of Zimbabwe airline aircraft by as much as 50%'.

Another benefit of hiring blind pilots is that they have not been much in demand, and thus are available at lower salaries than sighted pilots, which will help offset rising fuel costs, thus keeping Zimbabwe airline ticket prices competitive.

But I wonder if they've thought this through. Let's say a blind pilot, due to his acute hearing, notices that one of his engines is facing immediate failure. It would be appropriate for him to take corrective action, which, one would presume, would include landing the aircraft.

Is it just me, or does anyone else see a potential problem here?

on behalf of the blind zimbabwean pilots union: I don't see a problem. fuck you.
:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

When I die, all my remaining funds are to be liquidated and spent immediately on the most expensive flammable items money can buy, then they are to be stacked into a pyramid and I am to be placed atop it, viking style. Then call the local fire department and light that motherfucker!

Can't take it with you? Watch me, bitches!!

I want my carcass ripped apart by wild animals and hopefully, one day, someone will find my high school class ring in some mountain lion scat, and know that the cat had good taste.

If I get reincarnated as poo, does that mean that I was full of shit in a previous life?

Vanity continues after death. Death should be an opportunity to celebrate the deceased's contribution to life. But then do that one final praise-worthy and celebratory act of hastening the "ash to ash, dust to dust" process by being cremated. If your family wants a viewing, you can still do that. You can rent a casket. As far as any kind of resurrection - for those who believe in such things - any god capable of breathing life back into a decomposed corpse ought to have no problem reconstructing something from ash and dust.

Scott @ 58:

The wedding industry and the death or funeral industry are a big joke but I figured most people had known that for a long time. I have.

Both industries, weddings and funerals, are a total rip, avoid them like the plague.

Body Farm!

http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=924

Belly got it right: Feed the Tree

Why Die?
Stem cells anyone? Otherwise bright individuals still tend to be death-oriented, even though the technology is maturing to keep people perpetually young and vibrant.

The resources being dedicated to advancing the technology are paltry, considering the benefit to every individual who finds it worthwhile putting their feet on the floor in the morning, or their equivalent if challenged physically.

Worse, there are plenty of those in both liberal and conservative camps who will claim that my preventable death is worth working toward, that the cup of immortality must be dashed from our hands for the sake of you-name-it. Google Leon Kass, and Daniel Callahan, along with bioethics. Death is good for you? Existing became an anti-social act somewhere along the line.

Fortunately there are far-sighted, life-oriented types working towards advancing tech to preserve and protect our lives-- perpetually. That scares people, but we don't owe them the comfort they seek in being free from the decision of choosing life or death.

Some will tell you to degenerate and die to go see baby jesus and see grandma. Some will claim they deserve an opportunity to experience the tradition of caring for a sickening and dying parent, or say the old need to make way for the young. They are stupid or criminal-minded.

Here's a fact: I've been in the wedding and the funeral "business" for over twenty-five years. Neither would exist if people did not demand them - and no, the "industry" did not create this. It is a simple matter of anthropology. Read Victor Turner's books about human rituals. Read about "liminality." Humans recognize and find ways to acknowledge all of life's major transitions: birth, adulthood, marriage, death, etc.
Why do we have graduation ceremonies? Why don't we just mail diplomas to the graduates? For that matter, why do we even give diplomas? Wouldn't the records say everything that needed to be said? Is a funeral any sillier than putting on a cheap paper gown with a funny square hat and marching across a stage to shake someone's hand? Why do we even celebrate birthdays, and why in mostly the same way? Because it has meaning for us. You can bitch and moan about the funeral or wedding industry, but every one of life's transitions has an industry behind it: the graduation industry, the birthday industry, the newborn industry. They exist because we demand them - we want them. Let's not get holier than thou about this: EVERYBODY has their rituals of transition, and EVERYONE is exploited. Or maybe it is just that the industries provide us what we want. I have to buy gas for my car; I have to live in a home; but I do not have to have a funeral, or a wedding (not these days.) And yet, I have had one, and I will have the other. It's my choice.