100 and sultry

As Mama from "Throw Mama From The Train" famously said, "It's too damn sultry out here!" It's been going through my mind all week, especially today when we had a high of 100 degrees ... on September Freakin' 27th!

Throw in some undesert-like humidity -- 22 percent right now, had to be higher earlier today -- and it's about as uncomfortable as I've been all summer. And it's fall!

The girls had back-to-back soccer games spanning the noon hour today, so I was camped out in the sun and humidity from about 11:00 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. And naturally, both teams drew the sideline facing the sun, so it was beating down on my face that whole time. I had grand plans to get to the club and pound out some cardio later in the afternoon, but once I got back to the car, I swore I wouldn't set foot outside the house the rest of the day.

Fortunately there was some decent college football on the tube, and we got to see the White Sox gag away another game and give the Twins yet another reprieve before we settled in to watch a couple episodes of the great HBO miniseries "John Adams" on our DVR. We've got one episode to go -- can't wait to see how it turns out! I hope he doesn't die in the end.

New review: Kings of Leon

Kings of Leon -- Only By the Night

Genre: Whiskey-drenched arena rock

For fans of: loud guitars, Pentecostal revivals, My Morning Jacket, skinny jeans, burgoo, The Strokes on hillbilly heroin, facial hair

Download it: "Sex on Fire," "Crawl"

Twins-Sox series recap

Progress

Mad props to my trainer Valerie today. We did the second round of body measurements and while I'm still at 238, my body fat has dropped by more than 2 percent and I've lost a couple of inches in some problem areas.

If you watch The Biggest Loser, you know that the dreaded Week 2 Plateau is the bane of the dieters' existence. This is the middle of Week 3 for me, so I'm not surprised that I haven't lost weight this week. First of all, muscle is more dense than fat, and I'm adding muscle while losing fat, so the only numbers that really count are measurements right now. And with Nora at home the last couple of days, I wasn't able to pound out any cardio during the day, which limited my caloric deficit.

Anyway, we celebrated my success today by pounding the crap out of my body again. Actually, it wasn't anything excessively brutal -- just a good, solid workout, three times through a circuit that included 3 minutes of running, then some squats and some shoulder work. I got on the bike afterwards for a quick 12-minute workout and am feeling great.

Twins 9, White Sox 3

Great Twins game last night. That was exactly how they wanted the series to start -- not just with a win, but with a decisive win that could send a message to the Sox that will carry over throughout the series.

Baker was just massive last night -- and in winning his 10th game, he became the 5th Twins starter to win 10 this year (including the departed Livan) -- first time in team history that's happened. Other positives:

• Gotta pat Gardy on the back for playing the hunch on Kubel. Let's see what Cuddy does tonight against Buehrle.
• Nice to see nine runs with Span and Casilla going 0-for-10.
• The crowd was really into it. Standing on every two-strike count, curtain calls, and just generally maintaining a buzz throughout.
  
• It was fun to see small-ball driving the Sox crazy with bunts and stolen bases and getting the runner over and taking the extra base.
• It was also fun to see three HRs.
• Delmon's bomb was a blast.

Delmon still did that crazy thing at the end of his double, where he refuses to slide and then almost falls off the base while hopping to stop his momentum. I know he's got a sore ankle, but sometimes he looks like a guy playing softball at the church picnic who doesn't want to get grass stains on his good pants.

But that's a minor complaint after watching a nearly perfect victory. One down, two to go.