Week 5 - Red River Prostate

Stoicism (Greek Στοά) is a school of Hellenistic philosophy founded in Athens by Zeno of Citium in the early 3rd century BC. The Stoics believed that destructive emotions resulted from errors in judgment, and that a sage, or person of "moral and intellectual perfection," would not suffer such emotions.


Tired and pissed. I write this in recovery from what was once again a disgusting display of foolishness. But by tomorrow, tuesday morning, the dust will have settled and it will be time to do this fucking shit all over again. For now I'm forced to write this fucking thing so here it is.


TUESDAY


I deposit $300 into SHARPGUY via Western Union.  This nets me $450 with the bonus. I check fifteen minutes before the Diamondbacks game and see the money in my account. The thing is I haven't actually deposited yet. I'm broke.


I gave them a MTCN # of an old transaction. I'm a VIP so every now and then they credit my account with the funds before they're picked up. If I throw the whole thing on the Diamondbacks and they win, I just deposit the funds the next day and make up some bullshit story about mixing up slips. If I lose I deposit the $300 elsewhere for the weekend. Fuck em.


So I put the whole thing on the D-Backs and go blow up Tower Pizza with my boy. Italian salad, spaghetti and meatballs, and a Large Pepperoni Pie.


FRIDAY


I finally scrounge up the $300 to deposit to get the account opened(They closed it on Wednesday when they discovered I gave them a MTCN# from six months ago. I told them I must have mixed up slips and that I have hundreds laying around in my car. I said I tore up the one for this transaction as soon as the funds hit my account. I told them that I made the transaction while visiting my girlfriend who lives three hours away and that I'd have to go back to the exact location to retrieve the funds and resend them. I told them I'd be back there on Friday....they bought it.


I go deposit the $300 and they open my account. I've got just short of $900. Tonight we've got game 4 Phillies and Cards. A classic matchup. Halladay vs. Carpenter. Halladay always seems to fuck me, and I have that gut feeling that Carpenters going to pitch lights out. So I go Cards and the under everywhere. 1st 5 innings and game. Carpenter goes on to pitch one of the true gems in the history of playoff baseball. A three hit, complete game shutout. I love it when my gut hits. I clean up.


We have Boise St. going in the footies. I've never once in my entire lifetime bet against Boise St. If they were the only team I bet on in my lifetime I would be in Brazil right now, dancing like Tom Brady with Mila Kunis. I ride Boise and the over 1st half and game. All straight bets. Boise is up 37-0 at half. What a joke. Just to get some action I tickle Boise 2nd half small. Instead of taking a knee with 10 seconds left, Boise inexplicably decides to run it and this kid scampers 24 yards for a TD covering my second half bet. God I love this fucking team. Winners across the board. I now have a beautiful bankroll going into the weekend. $2178.


SATURDAY


I wake up at 9:30. Another beautiful, fall Saturday in the Big Easy. I am full of anticipation this morning for two main reasons. First, it's the day of the Red River Rivalry, which for some reason, buried deep inside this truly disgusting subconscious, is my favorite regular season college football game of the year. This year it's especially exciting because I absolutely love Texas catchin 11.


Secondly, Annie leaves for Alexandria today. She's taken a job there and will be spending the next year of my life there, coming back here only on weekends. Not only do I have the weekdays to myself for the next twelve months, which is beautiful, I have this whole weekend to myself to bet these fucking games. No excuses. With her gone I'll be able to run this 2k up to 20k. I already have 1k on Texas, which starts in an hour and a half.  It's on. I'd like to be able to enjoy myself a little bit while I watch it, so the task at the moment is to get Annie the fuck out of here before this game starts.


She's sound asleep. She sleeps like a rock, just like every broad I've ever known. I toss and turn all night, and when I do fall asleep I end up waking up to piss. All night long with this bullshit. I try not to drink water after nine and still the hard-ons and the pissing. I finally broke and went to the Doc for some sleeping pills, and a bunch of other shit. I still get woken up by the wood a couple times a night, but barely remember the trips to the bathroom the next morning. To get rid of the cloudiness I just pop a Provigal, or an Adderall, whichever one I'm feeling, drink a pot of coffee, go for a jog, and I'm good.


So I figure I need to get back from my Jog by 10:40 to place my bets and help her toss whatever else she needs in her car. Before I embark I need to get her ass out of bed. So I go back to the bedroom and start making all kinds of noise. I start looking for my jogging shoes, which I always keep on the front porch, under the bed. "Hey baby have you seen my shoes?" She rolls over, giggles, and says "stop".


I turn all the lights on and cough a bit. Still she lays there unconscious. She said the night before she wanted to get out of here by noon. So I set the alarm clock for 10am and get out of there.


I get back and walk in the apartment. I hear the shower running. Music to my ears. I grab my phone and go outside to place my bets. Earlier in the week I'd written out a betting system for College and the NFL. My bets are broken down in units incorporating straight bets, parlays, and teasers, structuring these bets in relation to the game times. In college you have noon, 3:30, and night games. In NFL you have noon and 4:00. So this is what it looks like.

NFL



5u Best Games(all day)
5u 3 teamer teaser best 3 of Day
3u Early teaser(3 teams)
3u Late teaser(3 teams)
2u Parlay Day
1u Parlay Early
1u Parlay Late
1u Ridiculous parlay




COLLEGE



5u Best Games(all day)
5u Teaser(noon & 330)
5u Teaser(Night)
3u Entire Card parlay
1u Afternoon parlay
1u Evening parlay
1u Ridiculous parlay

I loosely adhere to this. Just doesn't seem practical based on the funds I have available and the amount of units I want to bet. So I begin meditating on what to do while jogging. Here it is. I already have 1k on Texas, so I bet a $250 10 point sweetheart teaser with my three top plays...Texas(+21), Kansas St.(+14), and Bama(-19). If this loses there's no point to this profession. I parlay the same three for $100. I bet another noon sweetheart teaser for $150...Horns(+21), Florida St.(+1), and South Carolina(-11), and parlay the same three for $100. After vigs I've got $500 left. I'll save that for the 3:30 games in case I get crushed and need to make a comeback.


Annie walks out of the bathroom in her robe, drying her hair. "Hey" she says, smiling. "I'm leaving today, are you sad?" "Yeah I'm sad baby." "No you're not." "You're right. Today's the best day of my life." "Shut up. It probably is." She walks back into the bedroom. Holy Shit! No morning bitch. No mention of the alarm. What the hell just happened? I didn't even have to make anything up. I look to my left toward the T.V. College Gameday is on. Corso puts on an OU hat. Herbstreet like the sooners. 71% of America likes the sooners. God I love Texas. I run outside and put another $250 on Texas +7 first half. I start calculating my head. I should have at least $3500 in the account by 3:30.


So I'm down to $240 dollars when 3:30 rolls around. The good thing is Annie's gone. I got her out of here by kickoff. I'm really pissed and disgusted with myself. It's in these moments, if she's around that I start acting like a real asshole. I'll often pick a fight till she tells me to get out of her life and I can go to a sports bar and figure out how I'm going to win my money back. Now I don't have to do that. I crack a beer, pop an Nuvigil and call up SHARPGUY.


I bet Kansas St. for $100 and parlay K. State(+4) and Oklahoma St.(-30? 40?) for $100. My initial plan was to put 1k on Oklahoma St. and 1k on the Over. This was my favorite play. Unfortunately, Texas was a close second. K. State wins outright and Oklahoma St. puts up 35 in the first quarter and 56 by the half. They win 70-28. This is one of those games that can change your life. How is Ok. State not going to score 70 against Kansas? And I win 270 bucks? I almost wanted to lose this bet. I really did.


Oh and I threw $50 on a 5 team parlay. Four of them hit and the fifth, Air Force, I only threw in  because some asshole on Covers.com loved them. I'm never looking at that site again.  It's approaching 6 o' clock and I have $570 to play these night games. I need at least a G going into tomorrow. I'm six Peroni's in and I have to make the right moves here. I think about going to a bar to clear my head. I've been in this apartment for 7 hours now screaming at the fucking television. I'm really surprised I've never had the cops called on me. I even leave the door open and people are staring in at me all day long. A thirty seven year old man with a Peroni in his hand, tossing a football against the wall, and yelling at 20 year old kids on the television. What am I doing? Honestly.


No time for fucking self-awareness. What the hell else is there to do anyway? I love Bama. I love Stanford. I love the over in the Texas Tech game. I parlay the three for $100 and put the rest on Bama. When you really need a winner I say bet the best team on the board. The best team in the country is the Alabama Crimson Tide.


After a slow start Bama rolls. The other two games are jokes as well. Stanford wins by 40 and Tech and A & M put up 85 points. I have $1500 going into Sunday. I'm disgusted. If only Annie was around. At least then I'd have someone to blame. Now I'm stuck with this hatred. If I only lay of Texas I have 10k in the account. Why would you bet a thousand against the #3 ranked team in the country? Then it hits me. How could I have forgotten? I remember that a wise friend of mine once told me, who is a Texas Longhorn fan mind you, to never bet the Red River Rivalry. "It's a fucked up game man. You should never bet it. One team always gets blown out and it usually makes no sense. Stay away from it." That was seven years ago. From what I remember I bet Texas on that day and they got crushed. If only I remembered this before the game. Fucking Annie.


SUNDAY


I get a great nights sleep with no broad taking up half the bed and giggling all night. I switch up my routine a bit. I hit the jog hard. Five fucking miles. Then the Provigal and coffee.


Today is very simple. I love three games early, two late, and the fucking Falcons in the night game. I tease and parlay the Redbirds, Raiders, and Seahawks. $500 tease and $100 parlay. I've been talking up the Seahawks all week. They're the biggest dog on the board catching 10 against the G-men, but I think they win outright. I need to bet one game out of the three big. I really love the Seahawks. But hell they could get blown out. I think they'll win outright. Shit they can get blown out.


I go to covers.com to see what the hell's going on. After reading a few posts I realize what the hell I'm doing and get out of there. I pull up espn.com and a video starts with Hank the Hammer, the closest thing we have to Jimmy the Greek these days. The Hammer is a loser. I used to fade him consistently. I remember walking behind him at Belmont Park a few years ago when I went to the Belmont Stakes and lost two thousand. He's a sweating, wheezing, 300 pound man. People like that should not be alive. But there he is. On my computer screen. Telling me that the Seahawks are going to get blown out.


I check out the Redbirds schedule. They've been in every game and haven't lost by more that 4 points. I love Kevin Kolb. They're coming off a tough loss. They need this game. They're playing against one of the worst teams in the league in the Minnesota Vikings and against the worst quarterback in the league in Donavan Mcnabb. They're catchin 3 points here. This is the game. $700 on the Redbirds.


I bike to Cooters and get there midway through the first quarter. Everything seems normal. It's early and both the Raiders and Seahawks have put up points. Seattle is actually up 7-0 which is a good sign. I was worried they could be flat. Then I walk to the back where the Redbirds game is on. I spot a dude with a Redbird Jersey. He has his head in his hands. I look up at the screen. 21-0 Vikings with 5 minutes left in the first quarter. What the Fuck!


28-3 at half. I'm dead again. I make a save with a 100 parlay saints over bills over first half. This is my throw away bet this year. I'll make it every week. Now I have $400 going into the half. The $1400 is gone. The Redbirds are not coming back.


From what I've observed the Chiefs, who are down 10 at half, are going to come back and beat the Colts. The Bengals, who are tied with the Jags at half, are going to win that fucking game. The Raiders, who are down 2 at half, are going to win that game. I bet $200 on the Bengals and parlay the Raiders, Chiefs, and fucking........the Saints over for $200, so as not to put all my eggs in one basket if the Bengals lose. Now everytime I'm locked in on two teams and do the "and fuckin......" and throw in a third team, It means I've most likely done something really unintelligent. But here I am again. Fucking myself.


The Bengals cover, miraculously returning a fumble as time expires, after the Jaguars were doing the Stanford drill. The Saints, my second favorite team and my favorite team when the Bills suck, betray me again. I'm stuck with this same $400.


At four I bet $200 on the Jets for the game and parlay the Jets and the Chargers over for the first half for $200. The Jets pick Brady off in the endzone to end the half and I hit the parlay. Brady's first interception in the redzone at home in his entire career. His entire fucking career. What a crazy stat.  Truly an honor to be on the winning end of that one.


Now I'm pumped about my Jets. This is the game. They're winning this game. The Pats defense is soft. The Jets are in Brady's head. I go outside. At this poing I'm at a friends crawfish boil/partial colon removal party where there's an idiot wearing a Bills shirt that I'm forced to bond with when all I really want to do is fuck his hipster girlfriend from Austin and then move to Austin and fuck other hipster broads just like her. I put everything, save $200, on the Jets 2nd half.  Now I have $700 total on the Jets plus 7.


They're down nine with 1:00 left and trying to get into field goal range to kick the field goal, then attempt to execute an onside kick. It's a hopeless predicament that football teams find themsleves in where they're forced to carry out this attack, even though there's a  .01% of success. But all I need is a field goal, which at this point I'd say is 60/40 in my favor. There's twenty seconds left and they need fifteen yards to be in range. Sanchez drops back and fires a dart to Plaxico Burress, who is standing on the 28 yard line, which would be well inside Folk's range. The fucking guy drops it. I'm nauseaus. After something like this happens there's a 90% chance the QB gets sacked on the next play and the game ends. And so it goes.....Fucking Plaxico. I wish you were still in jail you motherfucker....I really do.


Another Sunday night. The void. I bike back to the apartment. I get caught up in the evening mist which feels dreamlike, timeless. The day escapes me in these moments. Home now. It's good to be here. It's good to be in New Orleans. I walk in the door, park my bike against the wall, take my phone out of my back pocket, and call in the Falcons and the over first half. When this hits I put the whole thing on the Falcons second half. They're winning this game. Fuck it's the Packers. Aaron Rodgers is the best quarterback in the history of the NFL. They'll probably go undefeated. They're the play. Fuck the Falcons don't lose at home. Unless it's the Saints. The Saints beat this team at home. And.....Fuck. Thankfully, I don't have to worry about it.


I almost miss Annie. Maybe I'll video chat with her and get a load out. Yeah that's what I'll do. Need to get a load out.