Why the "Hey Song" is stuck in my head

For the first time in forever, the Chiefs have a playoff game that I can watch. And for the first time ever, I will be watching that game in the Middle East. It is just the latest in a long string of moments where ordinary things seem weird when you do them in such an odd place.

I watched a ton of football growing up. It was kind of a weekly ritual: I and several Friends of the Blog, six to 10 or so, would gather at one of our homes. There would be lots of soda. Pizza, usually--the square kind from Little Caesar's, which was cheap and made right down the street. We'd go outside to throw around the football at halftime. There was a heavy punching bag hanging in my parents' laundry room on which we would occasionally take out our frustrations if the game were going badly.

Jamaal Charles was 4 years old when I started watching the Chiefs. Ouch.

Now there aren't really any rituals. Sometimes Mrs. Blog and I go to friends' houses to watch the games. Sometimes there is pizza. Once there was even a football.

The only point here is that I'm happy the Chiefs are in the post-season again, and I'm happy to have so many good memories of cheering them on as a kid. And who knows, maybe someday I'll look back and recall how one year, my favorite NFL team won the Super Bowl when I was living in a part of the world where the halftime ads constituted the best programming of the year.