I avoid major retail properties this time of the year if I can. To borrow a phrase my mother used to use, it’s mob city at those places. But I still go to smaller shops and grocery stores. Business as usual there. Such as at the place selling this coffee.

Promises to be the “world’s strongest coffee,” a marketing slogan that’s the right blend of boasting and meaninglessness, so I’ll give them that. I looked up the company, which means that their ads will certainly follow me across the web for a while. Didn’t learn that much, except that its HQ is in upstate New York. More novel than Seattle or Brooklyn or the like, and that part of the state probably does need the jobs.

Moving along: food from Thailand. Calling it “rhizome” is curious, since a lot of plants have rhizomes, including “Thuggish Landscape Plants That Spread via Rhizomes,” which conjures up quite an image.

In this case, ginger rhizomes. I didn’t buy that either. Or this.

But I can’t say I wasn’t intrigued.