If I can afford it, I want to be buried sans coffin in some remote freezing cold part of the earth, under snow and ice that will most likely never melt. No grave markings or anything. No fear of rotting, no fear of being burned up, less expense than the Walt Disney/Lenin treatment and no people gawking at me. Antarctica, please.
When I die, I want my body dumped in some frozen, lifeless wilderness, where no one will find me for hundreds of years.
What I’m hoping for is that when I am found, it’ll be so far in the future that I’ll have scientific value, and I’ll end up in a museum somewhere, under glass.
At least then I’ll be (sort of) remembered, and be of service to the persuit of human knowledge. And little kids will be able to find pictures of my icy husk in science books. 
Oh, and you can have my guts, first. If they’ll help anyone. Just leave the brain alone.
This is more of a CS post, but The Sopranos tonight featured uncle Junior under house arrest, and the only way he could get out was to attend funerals. He started scouting the obits and went to like 5 in a month before he freaked out.
That said, just dump my dead ass in a coral reef and let the little fishies get a nice meal.
I’ve already contacted the Anatomy and Physiology Department at the University of Queenland. They’ve sent me the forms that allow me to donate my body to them. I’ve signed and returned the forms. As I understand it, they can cut me up, down and sideways and whatever they don’t want they burn to a crisp and dispose of the ashes.
They returned the signed forms because I’m only fifteen-years-old and not old enough to ‘make that decision’. My parents are too disassociated from my life (and their own) to approach for the legal release, so, if I die tomorrow, my wishes will not be honoured. So, I’ll wait six years to die, I guess.
My Nana died 2 years ago. We won’t have a funeral until next year when the medical students have finished with her and will have a cremation.
At the time I didn’t like the idea. Now I think she did a wonderful thing. My dad fought for her right to donate her body (against his 2 brothers) and now he wants to do the same thing. I will fully support his right to do that.
When my hubby died he was cremated. I kept the ashes at home till my son was 9 (he was 16 mths when his dad died). We went to a favourite part of the coast with some friends and family. We had a picnic and enjoyed a day at the beach. Just before going home time, in the early evening, we all shared a story or anecdote about him. Then my son and I went and sprinkled him into the sea.
My son hardly doesn’t remember his dad or his dad’s funeral. He does remember that day at the beach and the stories people told.
We often go to “dad’s beach” now.
Of course “hardly doesn’t” is just stupid…it is either hardly or doesn’t. I’m not sure which one, I’m hoping for hardly.
I’ve already made the necessary arrangements.
My body is to be removed from the coffin before sealing. The sealed coffin will be handed over to my relations for whatever funeral arrangements will make them happy.
Meanwhile, my corpse will be stealthily spirited away by my friends.
A boat will be obtained, and loaded with dynamite. My corpse will be laid tenderly atop the crates, and soaked in gasoline. The Master Of Ceremonies will then shove the boat out onto the lake. A speech will be made, so as to allow the boat time to get some distance. Pints of high-potency rum will be passed out.
At the end of the speech, the mourners will line up at the shore. Each will have consumed his pint, and will then be issued a flare pistol. At this point, a bunch of crazy drunk people with flare guns will begin blazing away at the gasoline-laden boat full of dynamite.
The master of ceremonies is responsible for judging who hits the boat first. KABOOOOOOM!!! There he goes! God bless! The lucky winner will receive a special bequest, already arranged in my will.
I figure a guy should go as he lived, you know?
Yes, you’re right. It must have been a yirzheit candle.
If you occasionally lay on top of crates filled with dynamite while your friends try to shoot you with flare guns you might be going sooner than you think.
I am a Navy veteran (1993-1998). I served aboard a destroyer and a guided missile cruiser as an enlisted sailor.
The Navy provides burial at sea from the decks of a Navy warship if a Navy veteran or his family requests this service. I have witnessed about a half-dozen of these touching services. They are something to see.
While underway, the ship will hoist a flag with religious services pennant from the fantail. The chaplain will then conduct the service committing the remains of the departed sailor to the deep.
The Navy Hymn and Taps is traditionally played during this service. An honor guard fires a salute - seven sailors, firing three times. 21 guns.
The ashes of the departed veteran, which had been delivered to the ship, are then scattered over the ocean.
The family is then presented with the flag flown during the service, the shell casings from the rifle salute, and a videotape of the event. These items, incidentally, constitute the only material cost incurred to the U.S. Navy for the service.
A small cost to pay, for years of service to a grateful nation.
Put me down for a weird combination. I definitely want to be cremated - none of this anaerobic decomposition crud for me. (Side note: Cecil on the subject). But I have hopes of being buried with my great-great-grandfather, the first of my family to come to the States. There seems to have been a miscommunication somewhere, and the family reserved a space for my great-grandfather, who ended up being buried elsewhere with his second wife. So there’s a space, literally, with my name on it just waiting to be used. As far as I can tell, anyway.
And that way family who come to see me will be visiting the others as well.
Reallym, cremation is so energy-expensive and such a waste; grinding the body up and sterilising it for use as fertiliser would be much more productive, but there are one or two details that mean this probably won’t become a popular practice.
I have no preference in the matter of my body’s disposal. I plan on letting any interested survivors decide. If they feel better about cremation, so be it. If they want to embalm me in order to have a viewing several days after my death*, so be it. Why on earth should I care? I won’t be there in any meaningful sense.
The only people I will haunt will be anyone who sends a “Jesus Called” floral arrangement to the funeral. 
*If this is the case, I hope in the interests of taste the embalming is good. I once attended a Catholic funeral 8 days after the death, and the body had started to “go.” Not good.
YAY!
Death!
For years and years I wanted to be cremated.
Then I realized this was too boring.
Then I wanted to be buried in my own design of a Golf Course-Graveyard combination, with big ass tombstones to make it tricky shots.
Everyone laughed at me. bastards
So, whilst reading a fascinating article about a man who made it into Tibet or Mongolia’s inner kingdom called ‘Mustang’ and what they do there, It’s what I want:
1.After you die, your naked body is wrapped in linen sheets.
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The monks take your body out to a feild, passing prayer flags -triangular with prayers of the townspeople on them- and your body is unwrapped in a feild.
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The Monks then move back to a specific distance and start blowing huge Ricola like horns.
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Until the vultures appear. Where they snack on your Sweden House All You Can Eat Carrion.
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When the vultures are done and they fly off, they also carry the prayers of the flags and your spirit heavenward.
Yeah, that’s cool.
However, being that I am married to How Can You Laugh At A Funeral, AKA as the Prime Minister of the Anti-Fun Brigade, Mr. Ujest. And told him this wonderful way to go out with panache. He said that by the time he shipped my body to this place, I would be a little tough and expensive ( therefore cutting into his Tool Buying Initiative Budget.) I’m guessing FedEx doesn’t do dead people …ever. Not to Inner Farking Mongolia. Feh.
He offered to throw my dead body out the back door for the birds to eat. We have hawks in the area, but it would take awhile…
**So I came up with Plan B: **
Take all the crappy furniture that we have been given ( the Anti-Fun Brigade doesn’t have the heart to say no to anyone.) and anything else that needs to be chucked out, wrap me up in the crappy linens, and place me upon all the old furniture. Add some accelerant, a match and:::::::::::::::FOOOOOOOM::::
There goes Shirley.
If I ever win the Lottery Do you hear me Bruce?! I am going to start my own golf course and cemetary, by gum.
I’m not quite sure of the legality here, but a friend of mine once gave the old Viking treatment to a pet squirrel of his. He had rescued it and was trying to help it make it to adulthood, but sadly it wasn’t to be.
He made up a little raft, played some sort of vikingesque music, set the raft ablaze, and off he went, into the creek at the park. Poor little guy.
[sidenote] Before everyone starts bashing him for having a pet squirrel, he had the proper paperwork, certification, etc. and only took in orphaned, injured squirells that would otherwise never make it. He got most of them from the local animal rescues, shelters, vets, etc that just didn’t have the time and/or resources to help. [/sidenote]
Plastination all the way, baby.
When Dad was on his way out, Mom and I discussed funeral arrangements, as she did with the other members of the family. Mom doesn’t like the idea of being in the cold ground, and she knew from an earlier conversation that Dad didn’t mind the idea of cremation, so that’s what we did, with a burial of the ashes. Which were in paper, bizarrely enough.
Mom got railroaded into buying an expensive coffin, which was awful, but other than that it went as well as could be expected. Essentially what happened was we had the viewing and the service, and then a committal service at the crematorium. The coffin was placed on a sort of elevator in a chapel at the cemetery, and a variant of the burial service was read, with the casket being lowered taking the place of the actual interment. A few weeks later, we returned for the burial of his ashes - just Mom, me, my brother, and my aunt (Dad’s sister).
Like everyone else apparently, I definitely don’t want any expensive preparations. I would prefer to be buried, as I like the idea of returning to the Earth. I understand the very traditional Jewish way of burial involves nothing but a shroud; a readily disintegrating, plain box would be just as good. If necessary, the least expensive model of decorative coffin could be used, so as to preserve the feelings of the mourners. Maybe just take a pine box and varnish it, or something. My second choice would be a cremation and burial, like Dad.
I do like the cemetery we buried Dad in, the Mount Royal Cemetery here in town. It used to be the Protestant cemetery but is now officially non-denominational, and it’s very nice and parklike.
One detail: I’ve heard of this business of “impregnable metal sarcophagi,” as Cecil put it. However, when we were looking at coffins for my dad, I only remember seeing one metal model: the rest were wooden, of varying degrees of luxury.
js_africanus, I would wager that those that were exhumed did not have sealed caskets, which as noted earlier would have set off the anaerobic bacteria. You can keep a corpse indefinitely, as in V. Lenin. Lincoln was said to remain in fairly good condition when exhumed in 1901.
When I go, send me to UCLA and they’ll part me out for a fundraiser.
There’s a scene in Kundun where they do this. It is indeed cool.