It's so important to plan ahead when deciding to undermine your siblings in your parent's will...

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Most people who know me are well aware by now just how much I love morbid things.  The more macabre the better as far as I'm concerned!  So when SmashGirl over at SmashMosiacs [link] forwarded me a link saying that I just HAD to go look at it, I knew I was in for a treat.

And I was definitely right!  Seeyourfolks.com [link] is website set up to work out just how many more times you'll get to see your parents before it's time for them to shuffle off this mortal coil.  Cheerful, huh?  You plug in how many times you see them a year, how old they are, and it works out how many more visits you can look forward to based on their average life expectancy.

Given that I try to see my parents at least once a week, but sometimes life gets in the way, I averaged it out to 40 times a year.  I plugged the figures in, the calculator did it's thing, and it spat out an estimate of 620.

Okay, that's not too bad.  That should give me more than enough opportunities to white-ant my brother out of the inheritance.  Make myself look good, slowly erode their faith in him.  You can't rush these things, so it's good to know I've got another six hundred plus opportunities to subtly make him look bad.

I'm kidding, I'm kidding!  Relax, I'm not going to try and con my brother out of his share of the inheritance.

I'm pretty sure Mum and Dad plan on spending everything before they die anyway.

That's one Dutch artist I won't be asking to cat-sit anytime soon...

It's always a bit of a dilemma, deciding what to do when your pet dies. Do you have the vet cremate them?  Bury them in the back garden?  Have them stuffed and mounted?

Luckily Gypsy the Feline Dictator is only about eight years old so I've got another ten years or so before I need to worry about what to do when she finally shuffles off  the feline coil ... but I think that I may have found a way to make her "send off" a special one.

Catcopter!

Yep, that's right, a Dutch artist has found what I think might be the creepiest way to immortalise your beloved furry companion ... and that's really saying something, I've read Pet Cemetery!

But credit where credit's due, it takes a really well developed sense of the macabre to look at your recently expired cat and think "Hmm, if I strap her to a kite frame and duct tape some propellers to the paws, Kitty would make an awesome remote controlled helicopter".

I don't want to know how he explained this one to his kids, do I. 

"Kids, Tiddles was hit by a truck today.  But don't worry, it's not like you'll never see her again.  She's having her maiden flight at eight o'clock on Saturday morning!"

Go ahead and check out the video below and then let me know your opinion.  Is it art, or is it a weird and frankly disturbing thing to do to a much cared for pet?

I'm going to go for door number 2.

Putting the "fun" back into funeral...

200 dead bodies ... the creepiest
Where's Wally ever!

Those of you who are even a little bit familiar with my strangeness will know that I can sometimes lean a little bit towards the macabre.  As much as I hate to admit it, I've spent my fair share of time imagining up the perfect funeral and final resting place for myself.

I've always imagined a nice, quiet plot somewhere on a hilltop with lots of trees and a nice view.  Something classic.  Perhaps a nice limestone grave marker with a few nice words about what a wonderful human being I was and how everyone was just beside themselves when I unfortunately passed away rescuing that basket of puppies from a runaway combine harvester.

But one scenario that I didn't consider ... that didn't even cross my morbid little mind ... was that I could end up at a popsicle on a mountainside being used as a glorified "THIS WAY" sign.  But apparently if you decide to climb Mt Everest, that's a real risk you face.

According to this article on the Smithsonian website, climbers who perish on the mountain in their attempt to get to the top are just left there.  Currently there are over 200 bodies just lying up there.  I suppose I can understand that.  It's hard enough for people to get up there at all, it'd be impossible to go up and fetch down all the unlucky ones.  But I have to admit I was more than a little bit perturbed to find out that some of those bodies are actually being used by other hikers as landmarks to show that they're still on the right path.

Personally though, I'm not sure how I'd feel if not only was someone I knew and loved lying dead on a mountain, but he also had random people just wandering past his frozen corpse on a daily basis.  Then again, I'm not a mountain climber.  For all I know, it might be the highest honour one can achieve in the field.  To stand for all eternity, guiding the way for like minded brethren.

It made me wonder if perhaps there was a better use for my body after my regrettable lorry-truck-kindergarten-class-rescue demise.  After much deliberation ... and by much deliberation, I mean three glasses of wine and a ten minute googlefest ... I've decided any of the following will be acceptable.

Eternal Reef:  Imagine being able to spend eternity as a part of a coral reef.  This company takes your cremated remains, mixes them with concrete then deposits it in the ocean so coral will grow over it.  Imagine all the pretty fishies that'll come to swim around your dead body!  People pay a fortune to go diving to look at shit like that, so what better way of spending your afterlife? 

Burial in Space:  Like all good Trekkies, I had to include this one in my options!  Space, the final frontier!  To boldly go where only a few other stupidly rich dead people have gone before ... into the vacuum of space! 

LifeGem:  I've always like to think I was a gem ... and now in my afterlife I can literally be one!  These guys take your cremated remains and turn them into simulated precious stone.  Think about it, you could spend eternity as a ring, a pendant ... personally, I'm plumping for a tiara.  I am rather partial to a grouse tiara!

Yep, I'm putting the "fun" back into funeral!

The sort of funeral I could DEFINITELY get behind...

I remember when I was studying archaeology at university, they told us that one of the signs of a civilised culture was care taken with the dead.  Apparently the more knick knacks you give someone who's popped their clogs, the more refined you are.

But I'm pretty sure that my Professor wasn't referring to the Taiwanese practice of having strippers at the grave side when he was extolling the virtues of those who pay extra attention to their funerary rites.

Yep, you heard me right, strippers.  Seriously, I couldn't make this stuff up ... and why would I want to when it's all right there for the pickings!

Apparently it isn't unheard of for family members of the deceased to hire an "exotic dancer" to dance for him.  That's right, not for the mourners ... for the dead guy.  I suppose it's fair enough, he's had a bad time of it.  First he died, then some bloke took all his blood out and replaced it with chemicals, then they stuck him in a really uncomfortable suit that he probably tried really hard to avoid wearing when he was alive, and finally they shoved him into a little wooden box ... and you can't tell me they didn't bend his feet up if it turned out he was a touch too tall for it!

He probably needs a bit of a pick-me-up after a day like that.  That dude earned his post-mortem sexy dancing ladies.

But it did get me to thinking about what I'd like at my funeral, should time, finances and availability allow.  Really, its something we all should think about, no point leaving it to our relatives who would probably get it all wrong anyway.  So after much deliberation I've decided to leave a list of instructions to be followed in the event that I shuffle off this mortal coil.

• I'd like my funeral to be fancy dress.  Just general costumes if necessary, but if time allows, then it should be themed.  My preference is for one of the following:  
• Harry Potter
• Tarts and Vicars
• Roman Toga
• Come as your favourite dead person (I'll be very offended if you don't all come dressed as me)
• There will be no bible readings or other religious speeches at my funeral.  Instead, I'd like my entire life narrated via the medium of interpretive dance.
• There definitely needs to be a lucky door prize.  I'm thinking a toaster, or maybe a set of luxury towels.  At least that way someone walks out of there happier than when they walked in because hey ... free towels!
• In honour of the Taiwanese custom that gave me this idea, of course I also want strippers.  In fact, if you could convince Matt Bomer to attend and do some of those things he did in Magic Mike ... well, then I think we'll ALL leave happier than when we arrived.
• And, as shown in the picture above, I'd like my casket carried to my resting place by clowns.  No particular reason, it just looks really cool.  Come on, look at that picture and tell me that you wouldn't want that too!

So that's the bare bones of it, I'll leave it up to the rest of you to sort out the little details if and when they're needed.  But I'll just add one last instruction.  If it ends up being an open casket, could someone please monitor the viewers?  Not all of my associates are entirely scrupulous and I'd hate to go to my eternal rest with a drawn on moustache or no eyebrows. 

Ta muchly!

Not quite what they'd planned...

In what is either one of the worst ways to die ... or one of the best ... a policeman in Georgia died the other day of a heart attack.  How is that in any way a good thing, I hear you ask?  Well, he was having a threesome at the time, so I'd say at least he went happy.

Not as happy as his widow though, who got a compensation payment of three million dollars by suing the guy's doctor for not warning him that he could have a heart attack if he exerted himself.  Or maybe she's not so happy ... she wasn't one of the three involved in the threesome.  Doh!

Still, it got me to wondering about how many people have died mid coitus, and as per usual, to think is to act with me, so I've collected a few of my favourites for your reading pleasure.

1.  A thirty four year old couple in Japan had the rather bad luck of dying on their wedding night.  The pair, who were virgins and had been waiting for marriage, both suffered heart attacks right in the middle of it.

Imagine that, waiting all those years, imagining how romantic it will be, then on the night ... WHAM ... double heart attack!  That's just adding insult to injury.

2.  In what can only be described as an ironic situation, a funeral home employee and his girlfriend died after having some "alone time" in the company hearse.  It appeared that they fell asleep afterwards, but didn't take the precaution of turning the car off first.

CO2 poisoning will certainly put a dampener on romance.

3.  An 80 year old Croatian man was so thrilled with the deal he'd cut with his prostitute, he actually died of a heart attack before she could even begin.  After negotiating a blow job for around six dollars (I know!  I want him with me next time I need to buy a TV!) he never actually got to enjoy his bargain.

It seems really unfair, doesn't it.  Best deal he'd probably ever made in his life, and he didn't even get the chance to brag to all his friends about it!

4.  Here's one you'd never guess ... death by piano sex.  Apparently there's a bar where they lower a piano from the roof every night on a hydraulic lift.  One night after closing, a couple of employees were enjoying themselves on top of the piano when they somehow activated the lift and it squished them against the ceiling.

The poor guy died, while the girl was trapped and had to wait for someone to find them.  When they were thinking of an earth moving experience, that's probably not what they had in mind.


I know, I know, it seems rather callous of me to be snickering up my sleeve at these poor unfortunates, but really if you die in an unusual way I think you just have to accept that that's what you'll be remembered for.  I know I've always had a secret fear of the huge model whales that are suspended outside the museum next to the library I work at.  I'm always terrified that the cables holding them up will snap one day and they'll come crashing down on me.

But if it ever happened, I'm fully aware of the fact that my death would become an amusing anecdote people told.  I'd be the woman who was crushed by a fibre glass whale.

Sometimes you just have to bow to fate.