Final Stink Week Mascot Nominee: The Zorilla

We've saved the best for last.  The zorilla, or striped pole cat, is native to Africa and is widely considered the stinkiest creature on the earth.  It's a member of the weasel family and though it has stripes, it is not a skunk.  It smells so bad that it can be smelled a half a mile away.  That's more than 14 football fields.  That, friends, is ripe.  Most animals avoid them which is why the zorilla spends most of it's life alone.  It's cute enough to hug and since it's probably lonely, it could use one.  You'd just need arms a half mile long to keep your nose far enough away.  Our final nominee for official mascot of Stink Week:  the zorilla!

Stink Week, Day 6

Anya

Only two days to go!  Last night we wrestled Jack's shirt in to his hamper and chained it shut.  It banged around in their all night then tried to bite Jack's mother in the morning.  It seems to calm down when Jack wears it, probably because he smells like a bog.  We need to shower after kissing him goodnight.  Still, it's been worth it.  Stink Week has raised over $14,000 which is 70% of our goal.  You can make a stink about hearing loss and help kids like Anya by donating here.  Only two more days of holding our breath!  We can do this!

Stinky Food of the Day: Durian

Durian is a fruit from southeast asia.  Wait, it's a fruit?  Like a lemon or an orange.  How bad can that smell?  Well, apparently, really bad.  So bad that it's banned from public transport in some countries.  Adam Zimmerman says it leaves your breath smelling like you kissed your dead grandmother.  But if you can avoid breathing or burping, it tastes a little like vanilla custard.  And smells horrible...



Just how bad does it smell?  Check out this scientific experiment to get an idea:

Stink Week Mascot Nominee: The Turkey Vulture

Huggably cute Turkey Vulture

Whew, the turkey vulture is one ugly bird.  You probably know that like all vultures it likes to eat dead things.  It's primary defense is to vomit a foul-smelling lump of meat.  The idea, apparently, is that grosses out any would be predator which then allows the turkey vulture to fly away.  Disgusting.  But wait, it gets better.  The turkey vulture pees on it's own legs.  It does so to cool off using a process called urohydrosis.  We don't care what it's called, it's nasty.  It's also thought that peeing on it's legs helps kill any bacteria that may have crawled on it when it was stomping around on some bloated carcass it was dining on.  Blech.  Dead things, barf, and pee.  The turkey vulture smells awful which is why it's a nominee for Stink Week Mascot.

Stink Week, Day 5

June

Jack was banned from wearing his shirt to bed last night.  It looks like something Bruce Willis wore in Die Hard.  Yesterday he added grass stains (football at recess), chalk (from class - who needs paper towel?), and still more perpiration (hockey practice).  The shirt growled when he took it off and snapped at his mother.  We had to threaten to wash it before it behaved.  Don't say this too loud, but if it gets any more beligerrent, it's getting the Tide treatment.  Just sayin'.

Still, it's worth it the danger of having a rabid garmant in the house.  Jack is helping to make a stink about hearing loss (REALLY making a stink about hearing loss) and helping kids like June.  You can help, too, by holding your nose and clicking here.  

Stink Week Mascot Nominee: The Musk Ox

Musk Ox - Stinky and family oriented

The term musk is defined as 'having a strong odor'.  So this is the 'having a strong odor' ox.  It's actually more like a ram than an ox, but it definitely has a strong odor.  The males are the only ones that smell bad.  They like to mark their territory and when they do, some of the pee they use gets knotted up in that think coat of theirs.  Hence the stench.  But the musk ox have this admirable habit of surrounding their young when they are threatened and that strikes right at the heart of Stink Week.  Stinky and helps kids.  A very worthy candidate for Stink Week mascot.

Stink Week, Day 3

Andrew

Jack's shirt got a few frustrated bite marks last night thanks to his hometown Patriots.  It also got some Smartfood residue rubbed on it, as if it didn't smell enough like cheese already.  There was hope in the household, however, since Jack was closing in on his fundraising goal.  Unfortunately for our noses, he's decided to raise the bar and keep right on stinking.  We might not want to get too close to him, but we are proud of him.  All the money he raises is going to help kids with hearing loss like Andrew.  You can help Jack reach his goal here.  Until then, we'll keep breathing through our mouths. 

Stinky Food of the Day: Kimchi

Kimchi is a fermented cabbage dish very popular in Korea and elsewhere in the world.  It smells so much like flatulence that it inpired the character below. There's really not much else to say about it.

Stinky Cheese Countdown Finale

We've been counting down the top 10 stinkiest cheeses in the world according to HotelClub Travel Blog.  We're looking for the perfect stinky cheese to represent stink week and we're down to our last two (which just happens to be the official number of Stink Week).  Let's wrap this up and get to the voting!

God's Feet

2. Camembert

Camembert is said to smell like 'God's feet'.  That's pretty strong.  God is all powerful, after all, so if He has sweaty feet, they are probably all powerful, too.  So we'll count that as a plus. Let's see, Camembert is "rich in chemicals like ammonia, sodium chloride, and succinic acid".  This is a food, we're talking about, right?  It's also soft and runny and usually eaten with a spoon, which sounds gross.  God's feet:  definitely a candidate for official cheese of Stink Week.

Stinking for 800 years

1. Pont l'Eveque

Well that's a letdown.  Never heard of it.  It's one of the oldest cheeses in the world having been around ince the 13th century and supposedly smells like it.  It's got to smell bad if it still stinks 800 years later.  Of course, having smelled some of the stinkers participating in Stink Week, they might give Pont l'Eveque a run for it's money.  Probably the biggest draw back to Pont l'Eveque is that the stink is only in the crust.  Cut off the crust and you have a wimpy chedder-like cheese.  It even looks yummy.  That's OK, we've got more then enough horribly stinky cheeses to choose from.  So, which cheese best represents Stink Week?  You decide.  Vote in the sidebar.

Stink Week, Day 2

Well, that went downhill fast.  Jack smells horrible.  He wore his shirt through four hockey games and a bloody nose.  Oh, and he slept in it.  We'll be burning the sheets when this is over, too.  Fortunately it is for a good cause (and won't last forever).  He's helping kids like Phoebe, so that's worth some runny eyes and the occasional gagging.  You can help him reach his goal and make the rest of us breath better by donating here. 

Stinky Tofu, anyone?

How can we at Stink Week not like a food with stinky in the title?  Stinky tofu is, well, tofu that stinks.  It's made with fermented milk, meat, and other rotting things.  Sometimes the juice is so rotted, there are maggot in it.  Seriously.  Here's how bad it smells:  Some unscrupulous vendors in Asia mix in poo and chemicals to make it smell better and people don't notice!  That is one stinky food right there.  Watch Adam Zimmerman, the guy from bizarre foods, try to choke it down.  Even he can't eat it.

Stink Week Mascot Nominee: The Magellanic Penguin

Cute.  Just don't stand near by.

Aww.  Isn't he cute?  Just don't stand down wind.  Magellanic penguin mommies produce something called 'crop milk' which is basically barfed up fish remains.  Surprisingly the chicks don't slurp down all the barf and much of it spills on the ground in the colony where it mixes with the penguin poop.  The penguins then march through this swill with their tiny little legs and mix it all up in to a pungent swill.  Oh, and they can shoot their poop three feet in the air.  The Magellanic penguin, ladies and gentlemen.  Cute from a distance and a very good candidiate for Stink Week mascot.

Stink Week, Day 1

A.J.

Not so bad, really.  Shirt still smells vaguely of Downy even though Jack D. wore it to bed.  He plans to wear it in his hockey games this weekend, so he's going to smell ripe in a hurry.  There are no plans to bathe, either, but that's no different than most weeks.  Jack D. has always preferred stink to soap.  It's all for a good cause.  He's trying to help kids like A.J.  You can to.  Just click here.  Smell ya later.

Top 10 Stinkiest Cheese Countdown, cont...

We're contiuing our countdown of the world's stinkiest cheeses according to the HotelClub Travel Blog.  We're hoping to find the perfect stinky cheese to represent stink week.  Onward!

Smells like someone who hasn't showered in a week

4.  Epoisses

First the bad news:  it was a favorite of Napoleon.  Of course, Napoleon was a bit of a weirdo so that might not be so bad.  This is promising:  Epoisses smells so bad that it has been banned from public transport throughout France.  Cheese that smells so bad it is treated like a nuclear waste is certainly promising.  And not only is it dangerously smelly, but it's also runny.  We're starting to really like this cheese.  Then there's this, and the HotelClub Travel Blog probably says it best:  "if it starts to smell too strongly of ammonia, you should throw it away because it’s no longer edible. If it smells like someone who hasn’t showered in a week, enjoy!"  Hey!  Our Stink Week stinkers aren't going to shower for a week!  This might be the perfect cheese for us.  Let's continue the countdown just to be sure.

'Monster' cheese - Be afraid.  Be very afraid.

3. Munster

Eww.  Munster.  Yeah, that's a stinky cheese.  They call it 'monster' cheese because it's so frightening.  The smell growls at you from the shadows and threatens to rip your nostrils out.  They could make a horror movie about munster.  The HotelClub Travel blog says that a 3-month old munster is not something to be messed with.  It smells just like sweaty feet.  And nothing makes the mouth water quite like sweaty feet.  Or is it 'makes the eyes water.'  Either way, this is definitely a worthy candidate for official cheese of Stink Week.

Stinky Food of the Day: Kusaya

Kusaya is fish that has been soaked in salty water and the left in the sun to dry.  If that's not gross enough, the salt water is NEVER changed.  They just keep soaking fish in the same bucket over and over and over.  And the bucket is just left out in the sun.  Some of these brine buckets have been sitting in the sun and soaking fish for hundreds of years.  Got that?  Fish left out in the sun for hundreds of years.  Sounds yummy.  But here's the funny part.  Kusaya, apparently, literally means 'that stinks' in Japanese.  So if you go to a restaurant in Japan and order something 'that stinks', this is what they will serve you.  This might be the perfect food for Stink Week.  Don't believe us?  Watch this video of a woman smelling Kusaya for the first time.  We suspect some Stink Week stinkers will react the same when smelling their own armpits.

Stink Week Mascot Nominee



The walrus may be smelly but at least they are ugly. 

The walrus is one of the least attractive animals in the world.  Did you know that it also is one of the smelliest, too?  That's right.  The walrus is both homely and stinky.  This is because 50 pounds of raw fish and clams go in to, and out of, the walrus every day.  And they like to 'flipper paint' themselves and their surroundings with the stuff that they produce, if you know what we mean.  Nothing like covering yourself in something you've already, um, used.  We're gagging just thinking about it.  The walrus, ladies and gentlemen, an excellent candidate for Stink Week Mascot.

Something Stinks

Owen has his hearing aids,
but some kids don't

It stinks when kids who could benefit from hearing aids can't afford them.  That's why we fund a hearing aid loan bank at Children's Hospital in Boston.  You can help make sure that every kid that needs hearing aids can have them by donating here.  Make a stink about hearing loss.

Stink Week Mascot Search

Tamandua - foul smelling, but cute

Here's a candidate for the official mascot of Stink Week.  It's called the tamandua.  It's an anteater that is native to Central and South America and it stinks.  Its scent is 4-7 times stonger than that of a skunk and can be smelled up to 50 meters away.  For that it's known as the 'stinker of the rain forest'.  It smells so bad that even jaguars won't eat it and jaguars will eat anything.  On the other hand, it's kind of cute.  Not sure if we want a cute mascot for Stink Week, but you can decide.

Turning Away Kids Who Need Help Stinks

You can help Alba

The Minuteman ARC Program for Children with Hearing Loss is one of the best in the world, but they only have limited capacity and they are full.  So they split off a group just for babies.  The parents still get the same great support and the babies still get the exceptional services, but the group size is much more manageable.  The problem is that running two groups costs more money.  If we don't raise $10,000 the group can not run.  Families will be turned away and that stinks!  You can help by supporting the baby group here.

Top 10 Stinky Cheeses cont...

Back to our search for the perfect cheese to represent Stink Week.  We're counting down the top 10 stinkiest cheeses according to the HotelClub Travel Blog.

Blue mold + dead people = zombie cheese

6. Roquefort

Nothing says cut me a slice like a cheese that's been banned in several countries.  Apparently the bacteria in Roquefort can kill some people.  That stinks, but in a really bad way.  Most people don't eat it, though, because of the blue mold that looks really, really gross.  The stink is a plus.  The dead people is definitely a minus.  Roquefort is out.  Next!

5. Brie de Meaux


Creamy.  Delicious.  Smells like Windex.

 

Well, the blog doesn't have much bad to say about this cheese, except that it smells like cleaning liquid.  Yum.  Other than that it's creamy and delicious.  It even looks tasty.  We're sure it smells nasty, but cleaning liquid sounds a little too...clean...for Stink Week.  Let's keep looking.

Babies Stink

Stinky babies

These babies really stink and it's not just the diapers.  The babies from the Minuteman ARC Program for Children with Hearing Loss are all joining in Stink Week.  They will be wearing the same shirt all week and will undoubtedly be contributing a loaded Huggy or two.  You can help their parents breathe clean air once again by helping them meet their goals.  You can find them here.

Swedish Fish, Stink Week Style

For Outdoor Dining Only

Everybody loves Swedish Fish, right?  Well, not when it's surstromming.  Surstromming is eaten in northern Sweden and, we'd imagine, nowhere else.  It's basically rotted fish in a can.  Most people eat it outdoors because it smells so bad and it's banned from airplanes because the cans can explode in a horror of yuck.  Definitely a candidate for official food of Stink Week.

Top 10 Stinky Cheese Countdown Cont...

We're searching for the perfect cheese to represent Stink Week using the Top 10 Stinky Cheeses in the World list from HotelClub Travel Blog.  We looked at numbers 10 and 9 earlier.  Let's continue.

Stinking Bishop..love that name!

8.  Stinking Bishop

Now we're talking.  Anything with 'stinking' in the title definitely has the potential to be the official cheese of Stink Week.  It has an orange rind that is really sticky.  Sticky and stinky are good.  Ooo, and it has a powerful odor of old smelly socks.  Excellent.  The blogger writes that "if you plan to buy some, go straight home before people start complaining."  That sounds just like what the teachers say about Jack D. and his friends!  Oh wait a minute.  It says that it's just the rind that smells.  Inside the cheese is soft and delicious.  Delicious?  That's very un-Stink Week.  Next!

Made with the same bacteria that produces B.O.  Lovely!

7.  Limburger

Ahh, an old favorite.  Limburger is legendary for it's stink.  According to the blog it is fermented using the same bacteria responsible for the smell of the human body.  Cheese that smells like B.O.  Sounds delicious.  Uh-oh.  It IS delicious.  "If you can handle its smell long enough to have a bite, you'll realize this German delicacy is quite tasty."  That's unfortunate.  We'll have to keep looking.

How to Stink

Will

We're trying to raise awareness about hearing loss and raise some money, too.  The money goes to help little kids like Will.  Here's some things you can do to help:

Set up a fundraising page and stink with us. 
Support a stinker.  You can find a list of stinkers here.
Tell a friend about Stink Week.

Stinking is easy. 

1.  Set a goal.  Some examples are 'I'm going to raise $500' or 'I'm going to tell 50 people about Stink Week'
2.  Put on a shirt on Friday, February 3rd.
3.  Wear the same shirt every day until Friday, February 10th or until you reach your goal.
4.  Stink.  (That's the easy part)

Hope to smell you soon.

Top 10 Stinky Cheese Countdown

In honor of Stink Week, we'll be counting down the top 10 stinkiest cheeses in the world, according to the HotelTravel Club Blog.  We want to find just the right cheese to represent Stink Week.

10.  Taleggio



Taleggio...it ain't pretty but at least it smells bad

 At number 10 is Taleggio.  According to the blog, it is not a pretty cheese.  No kidding.  It is left in caves to mature and washed with salt-water soaked sponges.  That's pretty gross.

Wait a minute.  It's washed?  That has got to be one stinky cheese if it still smells bad even after they wash it.  But we don't want some sissy cheese that washes representing Stink Week.  Let's see what's at number 9...

9. Stilton

Stilton.  All hail the king...of cheese!

Hmm.  Let's see.  It's called the king of English cheeses and just the right cheese if you like "the smellier the better".  That sounds good.  And by good, of course, we mean that sounds disgusting.  Wait, what's this?  Someone made a perfume of the stench called 'Eau de Stilton'?  A perfume!?  Are you kidding me?  That's an insult to Stink Week.  Of course, maybe we could boil the Stink Week shirts when we are done and sell the stench to raise a few more bucks.  We'll have to think about that...

Ready, Set, Stink!

It's just 5 days until Stink Week! 

We started this blog to chronicle the efforts of Jack D. and his friends to make a stink about hearing loss by refusing to change their shirts until they meet their fundraising goals.  Or until the Environmental Protection Agency shuts them down.  Whichever comes first. 

Jack D. has been practicing hard.  He hasn't bathed in a week.  His whole body smells like feet. 

If you stink, send Jack an e-mail at stinkweek@gmail.com.  We'll post your stories right here every day.  Look forward to smelling you soon.