How I choose to feel is how I am: September is going to rock

September 2009 should feel like one giant party. At least for me. Check out all the awesome stuff to be excited about:

The new, slim PlayStation 3 is officially launched.

Let there be choice! Last week Sony announced a new, slimmer model of the PlayStation 3, which comes with a 120 GB hard drive and retails for $300. It’s already in some stores, but should be out everywhere on the first of the month.

This is fabulous news for anyone who likes video games as much as I do. So far this generation, there has been exactly one choice for the “adult” gamer: the Xbox 360. The PS3, which launched at an unfathomable $600, was just too expensive, and the Wii…well, we all know what happens to Wii players when they turn fourteen. The 360 has a ridiculously good online system (Xbox Live) which is worth every penny of the five thousand they charge you a year for it and, of course, it’s the only system with Halo. It’s awesome. Too bad the hardware is an unreliable piece of crap. Mine, already sent in and repaired once by Microsoft, is starting to give me error messages while starting games, and I fear it’s not long for this world.

The new slim PS3 and its price-cut predecessor change the balance of power. While Microsoft is dropping the price of its 120-gig system to match Sony’s, the PS3 plays many of the same games, but adds  an awesome Blu-Ray player and free online play. Plus it’s built up a solid list of exclusives, like Metal Gear Solid 4. As much as I love the Xbox, if you’re not a Halo nut, it’s now much harder to recommend. As for the Wii, its $250 price tag has now gone from “kind of shocking” to “priced by a supervillian”, and its two-piece controllers cost an insane sixty bucks. It’s totally a unique experience, for sure, but it’s a ripoff. You can’t even watch a DVD on it. Sony’s powerhouse system, which they were losing money on even when it was six hundo, does so much more.

Football’s back!

I’m most excited for the NFL, which kicks off on Thursday the 10th with the Tennessee Titans on the road against the Pittsburgh Steelers. My beloved Denver Broncos will be awful this year, but at least they were considerate enough to end the suspense months ago. I’ll consider every win this year a gift and a blessing.

It’s fine, though, because I’m ready to go back to being a fan of the whole league. I’d been slipping out of the League’s loving embrace for a few years, and last year, after I “quit” Hole Punch Sports, I was completely burned out on sports in general. But something about this year has me excited. I don’t know if it’s the familiar faces in new places, like Brett Favre and Michael Vick, or the return of Tom Brady, or just the hole in my heart every time the sport has been out of my life too long, but I can’t wait to go nuts on the NFL this year.

There’s a hidden upside, too: last weekend, while choosing Madden teams with an older brother (this year’s Madden is great fun, by the way), we realized how many teams there are in the league we hate. It’s great to see your team win. But it’s almost as fun to see your enemies lose. And I don’t just mean the Raiders, but the Chiefs, the Chargers, the Manning brothers, the Cowboys, the other team from New York, the Jaguars, the unwilling ingestion of so many NFC East games, the Ravens…the list goes on and on. Maybe one of them will win the title this year, but I’ll rejoice when all the others falter.

And oh, by the way, there’s this little thing called college football, too. And this year, they’ve got Labor Day weekend all to themselves. What Mormon isn’t looking forward, one way or the other, to the opening week BYU-Oklahoma matchup?

New iPod Day, plus the Zune HD

Every September Apple announces its new iPod lineup for the holiday season. I love iPods and I love the day they come out. But this year I’m most excited that they’re getting some awesome-looking competition, namely Microsoft’s Zune HD.

The Zune HD is Microsoft’s answer to the iPod touch, which I don’t think all that highly of. So why am I excited? Well, the screen’s supposed to be great, it’s got a web browser, and the Zune platform actually has some cool features the iPod doesn’t, like the ability to sync wirelessly. The biggest reason I want a Zune, though, is the Zune Pass: a $14.99 monthly subscription service that lets you download all the songs you want from the Zune Marketplace. This is so cool. Think of a band you like; instantly start downloading their entire catalog. Like all music subscription services, if you stop playing the monthly fee, you can’t play your music anymore. Except the Zune Pass also lets you keep ten MP3s every month. So if you buy that much music anyway (especially if you buy exactly ten songs a month now), it’s an awesome bargain: only a few bucks more for unlimited songs. I really want to try this out.

New Pearl Jam album, Backspacer, comes out

September is already guaranteed to be awesome but I’m not close to done. Pearl Jam, my favorite band, is coming out with a new album, too, slated for release on Sunday the 20th. Target is their exclusive major retail partner, but the music will also be available in smaller stores and on iTunes. The promotion of the upcoming release has, to me, been executed perfectly. Slowly but surely they’ve been releasing things, like videos on YouTube, pictures from their concert tour, and their incredible first single, “The Fixer”. I’ve learned a lot of this from their feed on Twitter, which is perfect for stuff like this. If you like the group, you may enjoy a cool making-of video a friend steered me towards.

House (or your favorite show) returns

I can’t wait for House to come back on the air. If you like the show and watched last year, you might find this preview intriguing. If you don’t like spoilers (of last year), don’t watch it. I’m stoked to see how the new direction of the show works out.

But maybe you prefer, say, The Office. No worries; that’ll be back, too, on Thursday the 17th.

New Halo game!

The new Halo game, Halo 3: ODST, comes out Tuesday the 22nd, and it looks awesome. Originally conceived as an expansion of the original Halo 3, ODST adds a cool new multiplayer mode to the original Halo 3’s excellent online game, as well as a new campaign, where you play as a Marine, rather than the Master Chief. I am so excited for this. Halo games are usually good enough to last even if they were the only game you owned. Even if this one’s sort of a supplement, I can’t wait to spend a few more hours fighting through the Halo universe.

The Rockies’ stretch run

The Colorado Rockies have already had a pretty remarkable season since switching to new manager Jim Tracy. They’ve just lost their second in a row to the Dodgers, but look like a playoff team that could be heading for a 2007-like run.

My biggest regret in 2007 was not following the Rockies earlier, though I’m not sure I would have wanted to. This year’s team has been getting better and better for months and is revving up the bandwagon at a more palatable pace. I don’t know what will happen in the playoffs, but even if they miss out or lose in the first round, it’s great to have an awesome baseball team again.

So, see? September is going to rule.