Taunt your family from the dead with a talking tombstone

Video tombstones and talking tombstones have, in theory at least, been around for a while. Or wait, maybe I’m thinking of Futurama. At any rate here’s another talking tombstone product, this one from a company called Objects.

The RosettaStone Tablet is a $200 device about the size of a credit card that can be embedded in or stuck to grave markers. It stores data on RFID circuitry, then powers up when a compatible cell phone is within range and transmits the data to the phone’s recipient.

Here’s my question: if you use the device for from-the-grave sexting, is that considered necrophilia?

“Speak From the Dead Via Talking Tombstone” [Tom's Guide]

(Photo: alistairhamilton and ElvertBarnes)

March 28, 2010 | Filed Under Funerals, Technology | View Comments 

Premature burial is an ongoing problem, apparently

Monty Python’s “I’m not dead!” bit is a lot more relevant than you may have thought, according to British physician and author Dr. Jan Bondeson. Nearly 10 years ago he published a book titled “Buried Alive: The Terrifying History of Our Most Primal Fear,” and last week he excerpted some of it to amuse and freak out readers of the Daily Mail.

My favorite bit is this info about German rot hospitals:

By the late 1700, paranoia about premature burial had reached such a peak that many doctors in Europe subscribed to the idea that the only reliable sign of death was putrefaction (decomposition).

In Germany, Leichenhauser, ‘hospitals for the dead’ became widespread and were still in use in the 1950s. These heated mortuaries were designed to hold corpses until it was obvious they had started to rot.

Some Leichenhauser were filled with fragrant plants to try to mask the smell. All were staffed with watchmen who had to supervise the bodies for signs of life.

But Bondeson notes that premature burial isn’t just a medical problem of years past–it still happens today (at least in Poland). Maybe a putrefaction clause is a good idea in your will: “I have to be oozing pus and crackling like a bowl of Rice Krispies before you can shut me inside anything.”

“Lifting the lid on the macabre history of those buried alive” [Daily Mail]

March 18, 2010 | Filed Under Funerals, History, Strange But True | View Comments 

Polish beekeeper found alive in his coffin

A last-minute request by Josef Guzy’s wife to retrieve a necklace from her dead husband’s coffin was the only thing that saved the 76-year-old beekeeper from being buried alive a few days ago. The man had collapsed on his farm and was pronounced dead after a doctor observed that he’d had no pulse, wasn’t breathing, and had cooled to the touch. Whatever had shut down apparently started up again later, though, because by the time his temporary widow asked for the keepsake he was alive again. Then he ate her brains.

No, he didn’t eat her brains. He did bring the undertaker a pot of honey as a thank-you gift, though. And then while the undertaker was Pooh-bearing that honey, he ate his brains. Probably.

All brain eating aside, the lesson here is obvious: if you’re going to have a traditional burial, request that your pockets are filled with keepsakes and jewelry that you know your relatives will want, and leave clues about all this stuff scattered on notes about the house. Hopefully that will keep them opening and closing your coffin long enough for you to wake up, should you simply be resting.

“Undertaker opens coffin, finds pulse” [UPI]

January 28, 2010 | Filed Under Funerals, Medical, News, Strange But True | View Comments 

Weave your own willow casket!

grandma


Remember those jokes about taking a basket weaving course in college? (Or was that just my college?) Just because you finally graduated/dropped out doesn’t mean that you still can’t learn to weave. And just because you’re learning to weave doesn’t mean it has to be something wussy like a chair or swinging sex sling. Musgrove Willows in the UK is teaching the morbidly crafty how to weave their own willow coffins.

From GroovyGreen.com:

Last weekend’s “Weave Your Own Coffin” course ($500) was booked solid. The idea is that you use the final product in the meantime as a blanket box. If anything, it would definitely be a macabre conversation piece.

For those that are interested, Musgrove Willows will be offering the course once again in the spring. Now you know what to get that loved one for Christmas…

It’s true, a handmade personal gift is usually considered the nicest kind of gift–but it will be hard to get it wrapped and under the tree, I bet.

It looks like Muskrat Willows isn’t the only wicker casket game in the UK, either. While searching for a willow coffin image to accompany this post, I came across several other companies that will let you return to nature in a more, uh, natural container. Natural Endings is a “green funerals” specialty company, while Somerset Willow Company will sell you fancy body boxes like the one shown above.

Personally I can’t think of a body inside of something like this without also imagining it set on fire, but of course you can go the more traditional route and drop the damned thing into a hole in the ground. Well, you can’t, because you’ll be in it. It’s your coffin, after all, once your bereaved survivors pull all the blankets out of it.

August 26, 2008 | Filed Under Funerals | View Comments 

10 Strange Coffins

Listverse calls their list the “Top 10 Bizarre Coffins,” but we’re not sure these are the craziest ways to be buried, just the most embarrassing. Still, they’re eccentric. Weird, you betcha. Stupid? You be the judge.

July 17, 2008 | Filed Under Funerals, Lists, Shopping, Supplies | View Comments 

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