Soul Gems

Note: As you read this post, please imagine Stick shouting “Trickertreat!” every few minutes in the background.

I saw this over on Suburban Turmoil, aptly titled  “Best. News Release. Ever.”

Monster Mash Singer’s Daughter Turns His Cremated Remains into a Diamond.

Los Angeles, CA October 31st, 2008 – Bobby Pickett who co-wrote and performed “The Monster Mash“, died at the age of 69 on April 25, 2007 in Los Angeles, California, due to complications from leukemia. His daughter Nancy Huus was at his side when he died.

After his death, Nancy had a .44 ct colorless LifeGem diamond created from his cremated remains. She wears it in a white gold solitaire ring. Pickett was diagnosed with leukemia 5 years ago, and he and his daughter Nancy talked openly about death. “I saw a show about turning cremated remains into diamonds,” said Nancy, “I immediately called my father and told him that I wanted to make a diamond from his cremated remains; he loved the idea.”

Creepy. I first blogged about LifeGems a few years ago, when I thought it was a pretend company (like BabyInk). I’m a little disturbed that it’s real and that people are turning their departed loved ones into jewelry. But I stand by what I said:

Whoever came up with Life Gems must have been playing a little too much Morrowind. Sometimes when you’re playing Morrowind, you’re a dark mage and you steal someone’s lifeforce and make a Soul Gem to facilitate your evil sorcery and character leveling. But the people behind Life Gems are actually turning human bodies into cubic zirconia. Can you imagine?

“I like your earrings.”
“Thanks, they were my grandparents,”

This is also another example of what a difference an apostrophe makes, because there’s nothing dark-wizardy about wearing jewelry that was your grandparent‘s.

You’d think with the amount of time I spend thinking about usage and punctuation, I’d have affect and effect worked out by now, wouldn’t you?