I’ve been doing some housecleaning around the blog archives—touching up on old grammar mistakes, removing work that doesn’t seem funny or relevant anymore now that I’m a big grown-up boy.

I was actually quite astonished to see how well my article “The 10 Best Things My High School Taught Me on Accident” has held up. Check it out. That was written in August, 2008.

With a little help from my friend David, one of my articles for the Harbus got featured on ReadWriteWeb. I think the Harvard satire element gets lost in translation a little bit, but you guys’ll understand.

I’m thrilled to be published in big places. Thanks, David.

Check it out here.

Hang on.

Before you read this article, I’m going to need $35.

I understand you’ve expressed some mild interest in reading The Harbustoday—you’ve made the fair assumption that it’ll provide you with some passing entertainment, and you can maybe put it on your résumé to make it sort of look like you’d be a smarter, more worldly job candidate. For that, I’ll need $35.

In fact: if you’re planning on reading my next article, too, just go ahead and send me $55 instead. That’s quite a savings. You’re smart with your money, aren’t you? That’s like a 20% better NPV! Think about all you could do with that spare cash you get to keep to yourself instead of buying my second article separately. You can practically buy 1.5 drinks at any of the parties thrown by the Euro Club.

What, you’re still not convinced? Some kind of scrooge? Well, I’ll warn you: You’re certainly not getting any of my e-blasts anymore. And I put a lot of time into those! Have a look at a sample one: can’t you see how long, oddly-formatted, meandering, and confusing it is? And you’re telling me you don’t want a fresh 1,400-word monstrosity clogging up your inbox every week? Man, get your priorities straight!

There are other benefits, too: For the fifty or so people who do end up reading this article—and probably only because they’re friends of mine in my section (hi, wolFpack!)—I’m going to give out 470 different executive positions. 463 of them will be Co-Vice Presidents, too, so you’ll have plenty to brag about to your friends, and ample evidence to prove you’re not worthless to your parents, without actually having to do anything.

And did I mention I’m planning some kind of a crazy, overblown event for later in the year? You bet! It’s going to be great; we’ve done it with mild success at least once before! We’ve had plenty of big-time speakers in the past, so here’s a short list of people you definitely won’t be hearing from: Robert Kraft, Youngme Moon, Abraham Lincoln, William Randolph Hearst, Tomoharu Tanaka, Chuck Testa, Captain Danny Davies, Charles Falcon, Luca Pacioli (for not making it this year, by the way, Luca is furious),Dr. Emmitt Brown, and Mickey Mantle. How could you not be interested by such a diverse crowd?

By the way—and I mean, uh, this is totally irrelevant, but I suppose I should mention it anyway—I actually do still have to charge you to come to my big event. It’s okay, though. I’m only planning on charging you, my special friends, $85. But tickets usually cost $1,655! I’d never charge you that much. That rate is only for those other losers, who, as you know, have already been kicked off my e-mail list and thus won’t have any idea where and when the event is going to be, anyway. But that’s neither here nor there.

So what do you say? Are we all aboard? I promise, I’d never try to guilt you out of your hard-earned money for more or less no reason. This article has big, BIG plans for the upcoming academic season. In fact, here’s one of our top goals for this year: I say it’s time for this article to get with the Joneses, and start its own Facebook page and Twitter feed! Follow me for the one update I ever write, ever, at twitter.com/JoshHarbusSrsly.

And now that you’re finally all squared away, you can get on with reading the following article:

Author Biography

Josh Petersel is an RC in the Class of 2013 at Harvard Business School, and he totally doesn’t get how so many student groups get away with such rampant amounts of fluff, garbage, and hard selling. You can write to him, or if you’re brazen enough, actually send him $35 on PayPal, via his email address peterselj@gmail.com .

[Note: This article appeared in the Harbus at Harvard Business School the week of September 26th, 2011. You can find the online version here, while it lasts.]

You’re a Google Reader user, right?

If not, you’re missing out on the fourth best part of the internet (right after search engines, email, and *ahem* incognito mode).

Maybe this, too, will sweeten the deal for you: I thought I’d create A Very Josh Bundle: the short list of my favorite RSS feeds to follow. (No friends’ feeds on this batch…I’d hate to play favorites.) Go sign up at http://reader.google.com before you click that link.

As for you current Reader-ers…did I miss anything vitally important?

This link was also quietly added to my Things I Like page a few weeks ago.

While my generation may not have lucked out much on the job front, I’ll say this much: We sure did luck out by getting grandfathered (hah!) in to our parents’ cell phone family plans.

(Another freebie: College student IDs that don’t have expiration dates.)

Per the advice/example of a couple of very, very smart design-types I know, I decided about two months ago that I’m going to switch from double-spacing after periods to single spacing. It’s a surprisingly difficult typing conversion; the period-spacebar-spacebar combo seems to be heavily ingrained after years and years of term paper indoctrination. So, bear with me. And, I guess if you’re so inclined, feel free to join the movement.

(That said, Matt, I’m still not buying a f&*$ing Mac.)

This may be my most important blog post of the year:

…

Happy Birthday, Mom!

I think this year she will be turning 35 years old.

And a picture about super moms:

I’ve decided (rather arbitrarily) that the best way to to improve the quality and legitimacy of this blog / make something interesting happen / in all likelihood lampoon myself / do the coolest shit possible would be to have a few friends write up a guest post for my blog.  I’ll be sending some emails out over the next few days, but consider this post a cordial invitation for you to join in on the fun.  No real rules except that you have to be funny or a total badass.  Email me at josh@elevenmusicmag.com or leave a comment below.

For my April New Year’s resolution, I decided to turn off social news aggregating sites.  So long, Digg, Reddit, and Google Reader.  Goals in mind:

1) In the short run, what would I do with myself with nothing “productive” to do?

2) Which blogs, feeds, and sites are really adding value to me day-to-day?

I hoped that by the end of the month, I’d become a much more efficient and effective internet user.  If such a thing is possible.

So now that May’s here, the results:

1) I knew I’d end up with spare internet time no matter what.  So I allowed myself two blogs that I highly suspected would be productive:  Seth’s Blog, and Inside Music Media.  I churned through a few months of archives on each, and found that Inside Music Media’s posts were a little too long to sift through.  I’ll have to compile some of my favorite posts from each sometime.  I also ended up spending an unusually long amount of time on YouTube and CollegeHumor.  There comes a point, it seems, when I’ve got to turn off even the deepest recesses of my brain.

2) Here’s the new Google Reader landscape:

• Eleven folder: elevenmusicmag.com, elevenmusicmag.com comments, twitter.com/elevenmag.  Duh.
• Friends folder: Zach’s blog, my blog, Kevin’s blog, Logan’s blog, Jesse’s blog.  Friends who like to write about stuff.  I wish they’d all write more often.
• Sports folder: 1001 Rules for my Unborn Son, Bill Simmons, Groupon, Art of Manliness.  More of a random folder than a “Sports” folder.  I don’t read everything that Groupon or Art of Manliness have to say, but occasionally there will be something really great.  Simmons and1001 Rules are consistently inspiring.
• Comics Folder: Achewood, Zero Punctuation, xkcd.  Lost a lotttttt of dead weight here over the past month.  I shouldn’t need to say more about how much I fawn over Achewood.  Zero Punctuation keeps me in tune with my old flame, video games.  And xkcd is just generally understood to be solid.
• Marketing Folder: Seth’s Blog.  Haven’t really found a business blog that’s as consistently useful and easy to absorb as Seth Godin’s.  Duct Tape Marketing and A Smart Bear are close…I’ll leave them in for now.
• Local Folder: A to Z, Cherokee Street blog.  Just to glaze over and try to keep current.
• Music Folder: Gorilla vs. Bear, Inside Music Media, KEXP Blog, Hyperbole, Hype Machine.  This folder’s always the fullest.  It’s nice having a steady inflow of new tunes.

Notable omissions: I used to have entire tabs devoted to Design, and to Men’s clothing.  None of the feeds I’d been following, though, seemed to be providing much value (I love Typography, David Airey’s blog, A Tailored Suit, etc.).  I’ve also tentatively un-followed The Art of Nonconformity and Kitsune Noir – two blogs I thoroughly enjoy, but I feel I’ve been sinking more time in than getting anything out.  Maybe they’ll come back.

It’s also overtly apparent that news aggregator sites really don’t need to be a part of my life.  After a month without Digg and Reddit, I really don’t feel any less internet savvy.  Or informed about the world.  Or like I’m at a loss for stupid internet videos.  We’ll see how long I can last without ’em before caving.

So what do you think?  Anything I’m missing out on?

Hi all,

My name is Raghu Hariharan, an avid reader of Josh’s site.  Josh asked me to take over for a few days while he’s working on some crazy project and on filing taxes with Eleven.  I don’t know if I’m all that funny, but I hope so! Maybe if I do a good job he’ll give me a permanent spot as a blog contributor!  I’ll talk to you tomorrow, take care.

Sincerely,

Raghu