“The Coffee Run” is a weekly satirical column. Any advice presented here will probably ruin your career, break up your marriage and suffocate your goldfish.

By Alex Braun

Feel like a slave to The Man at your unpaid internship? Think before you speak, because that comparison is totally ridiculous. Slaves didn’t have to buy their own lunch.

Here’s the good news: You won’t either, now that you possess this dietary guide to six common office-dwelling condiments that can theoretically stave off hunger at your unpaid internship.

CoffeeMate French Vanilla Creamer (single-coffee serving)

At 25 calories, you could actually fulfill the typical 2,000-calorie diet by sucking down 80 of these in the course of a day. Really the only drawback would be that you also would be consuming 480% of your Daily Value of saturated fat, which is enough to detonate a buffalo heart.

Equal

According to the label, Equal packages offer a brutally unsatiating zero calories. In fact, the only indication that there might be real matter inside comes from the sugar content, which is listed as “Less than a gram.” By the way, the package size itself is one gram. That’s like if a donut package said “Less than 100% fat” or Gary Busey said “I am not entirely made of GHB.”

Basically, don’t waste your time.

Tea Bags

Yet another product that doesn’t actually physically exist, according to the nutrition label. Every single ingredient is measured at zero grams.

However, that is probably based on the assumption that you won’t eat the contents of the bag itself – and today we are not constrained by such societal limitations. Although I can’t find any dietary information about tea bags, I was able to find this disturbingly long list of YouTube users who have done the deed – and it looks pretty filling. You Brits are insane.

Honey (1 tbsp.)

If you can handle over 530 grams of sugar, you can live comfortably on honey for a day. You are also most certainly a giant insect from outer space or Winnie-the-Pooh. And you’ve got the beetus.

Ketchup Packets

Amped with gnarly levels of sodium, ketchup packets are good for de-icing a sidewalk or mummification, but not very good for quashing hunger. For a somewhat healthier option, try …

Relish Packets

I figure relish is closer to actual food than ketchup or mustard, because you can see the individual solid components of the pickle that was diced up to create it. This should be encouraging to some broke, starving interns.

I once survived on these when I had to skip breakfast to make a Mizzou football game, so I know that eating 10-12 of them is not deadly – just really strange and kind of disgusting. You also will want to brush your teeth like, really, really hard after the fact.

By Alex Braun

Don’t get me wrong – my summer internships were great learning experiences – but they rarely contained the kind of action and adventure that these movie bosses brought to work.

With the Fourth of July weekend almost upon us, we had to ask, “Which blockbuster movie character would you want to learn under?” (We asked ourselves, by the way. But you can leave your own opinion in the comments.)

#10: President Whitmore, Independence Day

Who knows what Bill Pullman is doing these days, but in 1996, he was the ultimate badass president – the kind who could destroy a microphone and a number of alien fighters in a single evening.

The only drawback to working in the Whitmore Administration is that having a 15-mile wide spacecraft hovering over your city can really mess with a summer tan.

#9: Harvey Dent, The Dark Knight

When Gotham’s rock-star attorney punched out a witness and stole his gun — remaining calm enough to conclude his cross-examination with a witty zinger — 40,000 young people signed up for the LSAT.

#8: John Hammond, Jurassic Park

Sure, there are some occupational hazards at InGen, but how many of your friends have seen a baby velociraptor hatch this summer? We’ll just keep the story about Samuel L. Jackson’s severed arm to ourselves.

#7: Henry “Indiana” Jones Jr., Raiders of the Lost Ark

You’d have to think that Indy’s T.A. gets paid pretty well, considering how often Jones is cracking the bullwhip in Peru or India or Venice or (let’s try to forget this) Area 51. We’re dead sure Jones has got tenure, and whoever learns under him is going to be well on their way, too.

#6: Harry Stamper, Armageddon

Yep, I had to look up the name of Bruce Willis’ character. That’s not the point.

Stamper was a grizzled, no-nonsense oil man who was deceptively intelligent, and always got the best out of the people around him. Plus, he’d do anything to protect his crew – up to and including hitching himself to a nuclear weapon.

Just be careful around his daughter. Real careful.

#5: Clarice Starling, The Silence of the Lambs

She might be a bit young to have her own intern, but Clarice’s perseverance and and restraint in the face of Hannibal Lecter’s insidious mind games are a great model for anyone coming up in law enforcement. And you’ll get on her good side if you always carry around a spare flashlight.

#4: Admiral Ackbar, Return of the Jedi

If you have naval (or space-naval) aspirations, there should be nothing more appealing than serving under the command of a big, lovable squid.

Don’t expect to get any slack under Ackbar’s watch – he’s got eyes on the side of his head. It’s a traaaaap!

#3: Dr. Emmett Brown, Back to the Future

Trouble has a way of following the Doc, but you can’t say he isn’t passionate about his craft. Commuting by skateboard would save you tons of gas money, and work hours are pretty flexible when you can you can just punch a few buttons in the DeLorean to make them up.

#2: M, The James Bond franchise

It’s always fun watching Sean Connery as the original international man of mystery, but the one thing the old Bond movies lack is a commanding personality to challenge 007’s reckless behavior. Dame Judi Dench is one of those bosses you fear and love at the same time, and we think she’d be a killer reference.

#1: Ron Burgundy, Anchorman

Mr. Burgundy represents the most useful kind of professional mentor – one who’s likely to implode, leaving you a golden opportunity for advancement. Depending on how much jazz flute you can tolerate, you should stick to his side when you’re not in the newsroom. He probably can get you into some pretty sweet pool parties.

One of the most primitive — yet enduring — forms of comedy occurs when a man takes a shot to the groin.

Sometimes, it’s no laughing matter, like when it happens to me. But sometimes, it’s pretty awesome, like when it happens to someone who is destroying personal property because other people he probably has never met lost a hockey game.

Without further adieu …

Click here to view the embedded video.

I didn’t post this just because I’m a Blackhawks fan, but it certainly doesn’t hurt.

“The Coffee Run” is a weekly satirical column. Any advice presented here will probably ruin your career, break up your marriage and suffocate your goldfish.

By Alex Braun

I’m not a Luddite, but sometimes I long for the days when you could just light a torch, soak your quill in ink and stamp things with red wax – no spreadsheets or conference calls or internal wikis to tend to. Just maybe feeding a mule, which is a minor annoyance.

Alas, that is not the world we live in, thanks in part to these five inventions that have systematically sucked the pleasure and efficiency out your working day and mine.

Fluorescent lights make everything more boring.

Fluorescent lighting

I know they use less power and save businesses money in the long run, but so would an elaborate system of mirrors (which I have always favored). The only other area in which fluorescent fixtures excel is making everyone beneath them look and feel terminally ill.

Have you ever walked into Sam’s Club and thought, “Gross, why do I feel like I’m putting in weekend hours right now, even though I’m purchasing a nice new camcorder and an industrial-sized crate of Funyuns?” This is why.

PowerPoint

What did our predecessors do before the invention of the shattering glass transition? I dunno, but it was probably five times more efficient and immeasurably more elegant.

Now we spend more time triggering cheesy animations with our spacebars – “Sorry guys, it didn’t play back this slow in the preview” – than actually comprehending the tasks we’re faced with. If you were going to just read directly from an outline, you could have just sent us the Word doc and saved 40 minutes. Just sayin’.

The fax machine

I have already railed on how insanely worthless these devices are in a full-length post, but leaving them off the list would be like letting O.J. walk with a citation for driving too slow on the 405. Think of all the things you could have accomplished in the time you’ve spent trying to figure out how to send horribly illegible copies of documents through a phone line. It’s really, really depressing.

The Blackberry

If your work follows you home, crawls into your dreams, makes passes at your girlfriend and buys your mom better birthday gifts than you do, you have the Blackberry – and other early mobile devices – to thank. In the 21^st century, work doesn’t really care when you clock out. As soon as people find out you have a smartphone, you’ve essentially said, “Yes, I would love to work two more days per week for no additional pay. What’s your BBM PIN?”

This is a place of business, not a futuristic battlefield.

The laser pen

I guess I can understand that sometimes you need to point to things that are not reachable. And yes, lasers are great attention-getters. Most adult humans will not physically chase them like cats do, but all men between the ages of 0-800 will have that five-second burst of adrenaline where they’re like, “Kick ass, that dude has a laser.”

What makes no sense is that I can go to Staples and buy “business” lasers that are probably bright enough to cut through a bank vault. Unless your trip to Akron next week includes one-on-one time with Darth Vader, this is unnecessary. Remember what Yoda once said about great business presentations: “Your weapons, you will not need them.”

By Alex Braun

The NBA Finals are over, and justice has been restored to the universe.

Though he committed no actual crime, LeBron James has become one of the most reviled figures in sports for dumping his hometown team on national TV and declaring a new basketball dynasty before he’d even practiced with new star teammates Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade. Last July, fresh off his famous Decision, he predicted “Not two, not three, not four, not five, not six, not seven” — presumably at least eight — championships for his new team.

Until LeBron respects the total effort it takes to win a championship, the many things he has done right won't matter. (Photo: Keith Allison)

LeBron’s hubris, coupled with his colossal ability, made him the perfect villain this postseason. And when the less talented but relentless Dallas Mavericks closed out his Heat on their own court Sunday night to claim the title in six games, there might have been more excitement about one man’s loss than an entire franchise’s first win.

Now, we get to tell the King where he went wrong.

To be fair, James is a bigger winner than 99 percent of us. And though he may have been born with uncommon attributes like height and massive hands, it takes an enormous amount of training and practice to remain the most explosive and athletic player of his size the NBA has ever seen.

Whatever the media or LeBron himself may have said, his past successes cannot have come “easy” — they just weren’t as hard as they are for less gifted players. But champions, regardless of skill, don’t just work “very hard.” They work like the fate of the world depends on it. And the only way to do that is to have a respect for the task that, quite frankly, LeBron James does not currently seem to possess.

Veterans know that when the stakes are highest, professional sports become more than just games. They become absolute dogfights, exhausting both mentally and physically. The ability to persevere and concentrate in the midst of outside pressure is so critical in those situations. And by showing his irreverence for what it takes to be a champion, James needlessly added to that pressure.

I think too many talented young people have held themselves back by adopting a similar attitude.  Just recently, one of our users asked why people he knew who never went to college were having more success than he was. My response was that even if you’ve put in the money and some hard work, you’re not assured of taking the next step.

If you’re performing to your potential, everything you do should be a hard-fought challenge — even if you’re making it look easy.

People who succeed consistently don’t waste time thinking about what their past accomplishments should have earned them. If two doors slam, they claw their way to the third. When they fail, they take the lesson and become better.

Some factors will always be out of your control. That’s life. Your job is to make sure to make prudent choices and put your maximum effort into everything you can control. LeBron’s brash words made this series LeBron against the Forces of Good, when it didn’t have to be. It’s hard enough to win a championship when the world is on your side.

If you’re performing to your potential, everything you do should be a hard-fought challenge — even if you’re making it look easy.

That’s why the unchosen ones are celebrating in the streets of Dallas. That’s why LeBron’s dynasty is once again delayed.

In lieu of any startling videos that have come to my attention this week, we’re switching it up with the first-ever Fun Friday Picture. This submission, found on Twitter by new CareerArc Group intern Dan Drullinger, is a fine example of how to implode using only a piece of paper and a pen.

Note to aspiring interns: If you are also eligible for employment in the United States, maybe don’t lead with that.

“I feel happy of myself, too.”

This kid learned how to ride a bike, and his life will never be the same.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I’ve never been that big into horse racing. Generally, if 70% or more of the action at a sporting event is obscured by trees, it qualifies as fairly lame in my book.

Fortunately, the Japanese are experts at spicing up a mundane concept with the appropriate level of insanity. Proof positive lies in this remarkable YouTube video titled “JAPAN WORLD CUP 3,” which I’m told is some sort of promo material for an actual racing event, and not, unfortunately, a real game you can actually purchase. If it were real, my Memorial Day weekend plans would be dramatically different.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Somehow, after watching this about 30 times, I am still trying to figure out why one of the jockeys in the back is airing out a carpet.

Yikes … try saying that title three times fast.

Alex Bragg of BajillionHits.biz brings his comic sensibilities to this ad for Internet Week New York that imagines his supremely awkward search for an intern. Imagine Kenny Powers as a Web 2.0 guru, and you have a rough idea of how this series of interviews is about to proceed.

Click here to view the embedded video.

And on a very un-fun note, R.I.P. to the one and only Macho Man Randy Savage. I’ll see if I can’t post one of his nuttier videos later on.

We haven’t had a Fun Friday Video in a while, but I couldn’t resist uploading one of my all-time YouTube favorites. It’s a music video (and trust me, there are others worth watching) by Pensacola, Fla. songwriter Mark Gormley that achieves a zenlike harmony of mustache, falsetto and horrible green screen technology. I think you’ll agree that it pretty much sets the gold standard for public access TV performances.

If you’ve never been hooked by Mr. Gormley’s one-of-a-kind artwork, here’s your chance to start.

Click here to view the embedded video.