Suicide is painless?

They are now saying that Hunter Thompson had planned his suicide, fearing the indignities of age. I have to say, though, that there would be worse paragraphs to have written about your death than this:

The family is looking into whether Thompson's cremated remains can be blasted out of a cannon, a wish the gun-loving writer often expressed, Brinkley said.

"The optimal, best-case scenario is the ashes will be shot out of a cannon," he said.