I had a dream. And a carrot.

When I was (much) younger and in my teens, in the early 90s, I was obsessed with basketball. And I mean, really obsessed. I had a ton of posters, I'd look at my Skybox, Hoops and Upper Deck cards religiously, read magazines and sometimes catch a game on Tv. The NBA was very popular in Europe thanks of course to one guy : Michael Jordan. I was a Knicks fan (still am, curiously, even though I'm supposed to know better by now), and Jordan famously destroyed Knicks teams over and over again, but I till couldn't hold it against him. I'd wake up in the middle of the night to watch The Finals (an 8pm start means 2 a.m here, so it's the same circus now for the World Series), and too bad if it was a school night. Too bad for school, that is. And I'm glad I did, as those 5 a.m memories of memorable Jordan shots (against the Suns, against the Jazz, and that game 6 against the Blazers) are still very vivid after all these years.

Here's one of the posters I had

A friend of mine brought it back from one of his trips to Scotsdale. Nothing impressive, but I'm always very attached to gifts, especially those that are spot on my obsession (offer me Bieber cards, and I'm all happy. Well, all happy to pass them on, but still). Needless to say, I loved that poster. I'm not even sure I saw Space Jam at the time, but I was familiar with the awesome commercial he made with Bugs Bunny.

And I loved the shoes.
It's impossible to dissociate Jordan from his Nike line. That was pure marketing genius. We all wanted them. Nobody could afford them (they went for $150 at the time, and $150 from 1989-1993 (after that, the models sucked) aren't the same as $150 from today), but every basket ball fan would drool all over them.

And now, 23 years later, here I am. A nostalgic man (boy) with a little money on the side and who can afford to buy those precious shoes. And of course, Nike being Nike, they understood a while back that a lot of people were willing to dish out big bucks to finally get licensed copies of their favorite shoes from way back, instead of paying a lot of money for Chinese copies. Stupid nostalgia...

The Hare Jordan 7 retro shoes were released on Saturday. They were sold out in 5 minutes, but because I'm persistent and refreshed my browser every 30 seconds just in case, I was able to land a pair a couple of hours after its launch.

I know they're overpriced. I know I'm being taken advantage of because I'm weak (but hey, give me a break, I don't own an Iphone or an Ipad, so that must mean I can be saved). I know they were sewn together by little Chinese children.I know their marketing schemes are in full effect on me.

But I don't care.
I've wanted them since forever.
Those are the shoes that were on that poster.
And I never thought I'd see the day when they'd be on my feet.

And now they are.

And they look absolutely perfect.

But to be honest, I only got them for one reason : to have a new cool box to put my cards in