A link from blog reader Mike to the patent for the “Easy inter burial container,” basically a fat auger with a dead guy in it:
http://www.google.com/patents?id=TdGjAAAAEBAJ
There is some sense to it in that it would probably be easier to install than digging a six foot long, six foot deep hole in the ground for a regular casket. But this would seem to me to be a continuation of the dreadful practice of turning caskets into friggen time capsules with gooey centers. Anything more elaborate, expensive or permanent than a plywood box is going much to far in terms of gift wrapping the dead. I’ve already given warning that, with one exception, if anything more complex or expensive than a cardboard box is used to hold my dead ass while it’s being lowered into the ground, I’m gonna come back and haunt the hell out of whoever decided to waste all that money.
The exception, of course, is procuring a cheap rowboat and a few hundred gallons of fuel, and setting my carcass on fire out at sea. Throw in some fireworks, at least make it entertaining.
13 Responses to “Screw The Dead”
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I guess when you’re dead, your screwed. 😀
I like figure 27; put it in the water with a fake duck on top of it, and hope that hunters are sporting enough not to shoot at it.
As to why it has to be hand-screwed into the ground in figure 58-60 is a good question; in hard soil conditions this could lead to one of the screwers having a heart attack, and then you are back to square one.
I did a Google patent search for “viking funeral” and variants. There’s nothing that doesn’t include a building and all that. Perhaps there’s a patent in this idea.
Wouldn’t cremation be a little bit more efficient ?
I believe there is some minimum depths people have to be
buried at, somehow I don’t think ‘eyebrow level’ is it.
and the ‘Rocket Gibraltar’ film if you want to confuse a
proper Viking memorial with a yuppy feel good movie.
-G
Although everyone thinks all the Vikings got sent out on burning ships (probably due to the movie “The Vikings”) a lot of Viking and Saxon kings got buried inside of a longship on dry ground, which is lucky for us, as we wouldn’t know much about the details of their beautiful ships otherwise:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oseberg_ship
Yeah, a rowboat and some gas is cheap. The money saved can fund your wake and buy some flare pistols. Your friends will need something with which to ignite the boat.
Just what is wrong with burning human remains? Oh, thats right!!!! It is ecologically and morally sound. How silly of me.
To hell with Earth bound burial; I don’t want my remains to have to wait several billion years before rejoining the cosmos. Just launch my body toward the center of the Milky Way.
Hmmm, you know I get the distinct impression from the drawings of those little “screw-in/push-in” fertilizer things. Maybe this isn’t such a bad idea after all. After all you can plant more ‘fertilizer’ this way, closer together…
Randy
I still think there’s a patent in Scott’s idea of a Viking funeral, however un-Viking it may be. I don’t think it would take a hundred gallons of fuel. I need to read up on the mechanics of cremation.
It takes a surprising amount of fuel to cremate a human body. You can see the size of a wood-based funeral pyre here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/tyne/5174260.stm
(Note: in a Google Image search, the first result that seemed to show a “funeral pyre” of human scale also showed an example of ridiculous governmental interference in a purely practical funeral process)
Reducing a human to ash is a heck of a challenge. I’d suggest that in order to make a business out of cost-effective “Viking funerals,” part of the patent would include the embalming process. Specifically, embalm the body with a fluid that serves as a good carrier for finely-ground or dissolved ammonium nitrate or ammonium perchlorate. Of course, some experimentation would be required (probably with pig carcasses) to get a good mix so that when you start the fire, the AP makes the fire energetic and complete, but doesn’t transition from deflagration to detonation. It’d be damned entertaining, but probably a bit problematic.
All this talk about open air cremation makes me think about the end of
“Return of the Jedi”.
> the end of “Return of the Jedi”.
Which, the “theatrical” ending, or this improved version?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jn_J425eo3Q
Makes you think about whom you want to ask to be your pallscrewers.