September 06, 2004

• Wired article on artificial diamonds.
• It's kind of cheesy, and it sounds like the plot for a Philip Jose Farmer novel, but it's also kind of cool. And if it takes off, that means that many fewer cemetaries need to be built. That Wired article is great, thanks PF.
• You know that they don't need someone's ashes to make a diamond. Anything carbon based would work. It could be a head of moldy lettuce, your old tennis shoes, a hand full of rubber bands or a cow flop. Now that would be something to have made into a diamond, a pile of poo... I love the irony.
• Maybe I'm just not a sentimental guy, but can you really be attached to the specific elemental components of your loved one's dead body? Should we start making matches out of the sulphur and pennies from the copper (and zinc)? Maybe someday you will be able use your dead cat's electrons to power your toaster. I realize people want to feel close to those who've passed on, but at some point the abstraction becomes absurd.
• I don't think this is aimed at the "loved ones", it's aimed at you and me. It appeals to people's desire to be immortal, no matter the form. And, as we know from the advertising copy, A Diamond is Forever®.
• Fuckin' sty00000pid.
• I guess you're right pyrrthon. You too, Nostril. As for me, I still want to be stuffed and mounted over the fireplace. Less expensive and more tasteful.
• I want to be launched out of a catapult, on fire, into the pacific ocean, from the deck of an old garbage scow. I'm quite serious.
• That's a strange fetish, Nostril. Even for you. Have you tried medication?
• My wife (or kids) can make me into whatever gem they want after I die, but I'd like to write it into my will that they make a wine goblet out of my skull first.
• Well, Nostril, I guess it's better than a hambone in your rear, a rope, and a pack of dogs.
• I gotta say, as attractive as the diamond might be, coppermac's skull goblet thing has a certain something something.
• When Mabel gazed at her fingers, she saw her sister Nell, Her uncle John, first husband Jim, and likewise cousin May. But now she's found a lusher way of honouring her dead, Their crystalized remains are set in things she uses every day. Why, you hardly notice they are dead at all! Nell controls the doorbell in the big front hall, Even says, 'How d'ye do' when visitors call, Jim still presides over the (now automated) bar, Tells risque jokes, and asks you how things are. Her uncle John still functions as the cook, and cleans the stove, Stocks the fridge, does all the menus, and has the kitchen painted mauve, And May, always a chatty girl, is in the telephone -- She tells you 'Mabel's not at hime'', Or takes a message if you call -- No, you hardly notice they are dead at all.
• I want a full-on viking funeral. Horned hats, burning boat and all. If I don't get one, I'm gonna haunt the living shit out of my surviving family and friends.