Friday, September 17, 2010

Dead and Alive

Pat Burns is one lucky guy.

Friday, the former Bruins coach died -- for about five minutes.  The news flashed across the Internet news sites around noontime.  I scrolled Wikipedia and he was on the "Recent Deaths" page, and the Wiki article on him was tagged "This article is about a person who recently died -- Some information, such as that pertaining to the circumstances of the person's death and surrounding events, may change as more facts become known."

I checked back five minutes later and the tag had mysteriously been removed.  Seems Burns contacted the media to inform them that he was still alive. While he's been fighting cancer for some time, he apparently is still kicking around.  He sounded pissed, "I'm not dead, far (expletive) from it," he said in a wire article.

My question: why be pissed?  How many of us get a chance to read our obituary?  I'd be fired up about the opportunity to read mine.  Even if someone does say anything bad about me, at least that way I know who my real friends are.

Personally, I'd frame the obits.  But maybe that's just me. 

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