Welcome back to Cake, MLB rivals the NBA for playoff scheduling idiocy and a recap of last night's Greek

- Allow me to speak for rock fans everywhere when I say welcome back, Cake. The alternative rockers haven’t released an album of new material since 2004's "Pressure Chief," although they did put out a compilation of selected outtakes called "B-Sides and Rarities" in 2007. That the band is back in the studio and tentatively scheduled to release its as-of-yet untitled sixth album in Spring 2010 is one thing to take note of, but it’s definitely not the only interesting part of this story. To give fans a taste of the new material, Cake will be granting them access to small samplings of six different songs over the next several months - but only if those fans are signed up to Cake's mailing list. These snippets can also be used as ringtones, with the featured portion described as "a hook that can stand on its own," separate from the entire song, according to vocalist John McCrea. "In light of recent changes in consumer expectations, I had been thinking about releasing an entire ringtone album instead of real albums," vocalist John McCrea stated. "This just seemed like a good way forward to that eventual goal.” I’m hoping he’s being sarcastic or facetious there, because an entire album of ringtones would, um, how should I say this…..suck. Stick with actual albums or real music not designed to be a damn ringtone on someone’s phone. Another noteworthy aspect of this album is that Cake plans to record it using 100 percent solar power. The band converted their Sacramento-based studio to run on the sun’s rays, which should only enhance its reputation as one of the greenest bands in music. Every part of the recording process, including writing, rehearsing and recording, is being powered by solar energy and McCrea says the album is close to being finished. He added that in the recording process, the band has incorporated a handful of new acoustic instruments into their sound that adds what he describes as a "warmth to the mix." Also giving Cake a warm feeling has to be the fact that due to powering their studio on solar energy, they are not using up a significant chunk of electricity that a band in the studio would ordinarily consume. That extra electricity that doesn't end up being used by the band is purchased by the City of Sacramento's public works and in turn, the city sends them a check for the excess wattage. To keep itself in the minds of music fans during its time away from recording, the band reissued its debut album, 1994's "Motorcade of Generosity," as an enhanced CD and on 180 gram vinyl back in June. If you want to sign up for the aforementioned free music samples, go to cakemusic.com and sign yourself up. Otherwise, you’ll have to wait several months and pick up the new album with the masses…………

- Is there some sort of mandate that professional sports league in the United States must have a playoff schedule that is nothing short of idiotic? The NBA is king of this trend, taking three-day breaks in playoff series when the two competing teams are from cities less than one hour apart by plane or two-day breaks between games of series that are in the exact same city. Of course, the Association does it to drag its postseason out as long as possible, keep itself in the news for as long as possible and place games on nights when they will garner the best TV ratings. However, Major League Baseball isn't going to sit idly by and concede the title of worst postseason schedule maker to the NBA. No, MLB has a little something for David Stern and Co. and nowhere is that more evident than in what we’re seeing right now. After the New York Yankees wrapped up their American League Divisional Series Sunday with a three-game sweep of bumbling, inept Minnesota, the Yanks knew exactly who their opponent would be. The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim in Orange County North of San Diego had already finished off their own sweep, brooming Boston out of the playoffs the previous day. So with both participants in the American League Championship Series determined, it’s time to get going, right? Not exactly. The ALCS won't be starting today, not even tomorrow and not even Thursday. No, the series doesn’t commence until freaking Friday night in New York. Well done, MLB. With the weather already becoming an issue and teams postponing games because of cold and snow, the league office decides that a full five days off is the right option for the ALCS? Now I know that the schedule for these things is set well in advance and that MLB can’t say prior to the playoffs that a second-round series or the World Series will begin too soon because they don’t know if the series from the previous rounds will go four games, five games, etc., but you’re telling me they can’t built their schedule with more than one option? In other words, if one of the two ALDS series goes the distance and the participants for the ALCS aren’t set quickly, then stick with the ALCS start date you set originally. But if both ALDS matchups are sweeps, as happened this year, then set a second date, two or three days earlier, when the ALCS would begin. Instead, you’ve got five days off, players sitting around getting stiff and stale and fans having their interest drift elsewhere in a busy sports landscape. Plus, the sooner you get these series going, the less likely that you end up playing games in 36-degree temperatures with rain/snow mix falling, cold winds blowing and fans enjoying the games from under four blankets and three layers of clothing as they peer out from the eye-hole opening in their ski mask. Thanks for the lack of foresight and forethought, MLB, show the world that the idiots at the NBA league office have some competition when it comes to imbecilic playoff scheduling……………

- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! When the world is experiencing a down period in terms of riots and social unrest, one group you can always go to in the search for people willing to start sh*t is angry Maoists. For that very reason, the Maoists are one of my favorite groups, political or otherwise, in the world. It has nothing to do with their political views at all, because all that matters to me is that a group is willing to stick it to The Man and create mayhem. That’s exactly what happened Monday in eastern India, where suspected Maoists blew up a railway track, a bridge and fired at a bus ahead of a planned crackdown by paramilitaries and police. I’ve got two words for you, suspected Maoists in the mineral-rich Jharkhand state of India: freaking awesome! These heroes also blocked a highway and burned down a truck before fleeing, or as I call it, a win-win. They do the damage, but they also make a clean getaway and live to riot another day. But as great as all of this is, these rascally Maoists aren’t done yet. They’ve also called for a two-day strike to protest what they view as an undemocratic government plan to launch an offensive in areas under their control. Some of the group’s most senior leaders have also been arrested, which is a surefire way to piss off any self-respecting group of social dissidents in any culture. This sets up a great battle of Maoists vs. state police, paramilitaries and special squads. The Indian government views the Maoists as the biggest threat to internal security, which is quite a compliment in my book. They see the group as a threat that needs to be squelched and the Maoists’ strongholds as locations to be seized and held until governance is established. The current plan is to launch this offensive (adjective) offensive (noun) in two weeks and begin by targeting two of the 11 rebel strongholds that have been initially chosen for the operation, said Kashmir Singh, the home ministry's joint secretary for Maoist management. Smart money is on eastern India -- on the border between Jharkhand and West Bengal states - as the first target region for a campaign of persecution expected to last a year or more. Folks, you may be asking why I’m siding with a rogue group like the Maoists here. If you’re asking that….clearly you don’t read this space often enough. I love me a dose of anyone who wants to take it to The Man and if the Maoists, known as the Naxalites in India, say they are fighting to defend the rights of the poor, then I have no choice but to believe them. They wield significant influence in 20 of the country's 28 states, according to the government, so this isn't some irrelevant, out-in-left-field group with no real role in their country. They target police, alleged police informers and people they call "class enemies," as well as attacking infrastructure such as roads, bridges, railways, and power and telecommunication networks. In other words, they are equal-opportunity rioters and for that, they are receiving a tip of my cap…………

- It took long enough, but finally I’ve found someone to do former Toronto Blue Jays manager Tim Johnson proud. You may remember Johnson as the ass clown who once claimed that he was a distinguished Vietnam veteran even though he had never actually served in the military. As despicable as that was, Richard Strandlof of Colorado is even more of a scumbag. Strandlof not only claimed to have survived the 9/11 attacks on the Pentagon, survived again when a roadside bomb went off in Iraq, killing four fellow Marines and claimed to have a metal plate in his head because of the explosion, this cat went around looking to turn a profit off of his bogus military service. He traveled his home state of Colorado appearing at the sides of politicians, speaking on behalf of veterans at the state Capitol and forming a group called the Colorado Veterans Alliance. The problem with all of this was that Strandlof was never a Marine, he was never a member of any branch of the military and he never graduated from the Naval Academy. Even the name he went by, Rick Duncan, was a lie. The lie came to an end Friday, when the FBI arrested him on the rare charge of "stolen valor." He was held "for false claims about receipt of military decorations or medals," an FBI release said. The maximum penalty for the crime is up to one year incarceration and a $100,000 fine. His fate is definitely at the mercy of the court because Strandlof has already come clean about how much of a liar he is. In regard to the attacks of 9/11, he copped to being “in San Jose, California, watching it in horror on TV with a few other people.” However, dude isn't exactly owning all of his actions because he’s still blaming his actions on "some severely underdiagnosed mental illness" and getting caught up in the moment around "people who are passionate and loved what they did." He also expressed wonderment about how exactly he could have hurt people by looking to make money by touting a military career that never happened. "It's not for me to say, and time will tell," he said. As you might expect, every veterans group in sight is coming for this guy and looking to tear him a new one. Of everyone out there who has a problem with Strandlof, veterans are the one group whose opinion truly matters. They are the group who is being exploited and taken advantage of, so if they want to tar and feather Richard Strandlof, so be it…………

- Any time a show can find a way to work Comi-Con, the massive gathering of pale, pasty, no-life-having dorks, er, comic book lovers, that’s solid. Last night’s Greek featured a guys’ road trip to the Ohio River Comi-Con in Cincinnati, some top-notch sleuthing to uncover a secret society and an awkward re-start of a relationship - make that two. Now that girlfriend - technically ex-girlfriend - Jordan has taken her photography internship in New York, Rusty is struggling with how to move on. He and Jordan agreed that a long-distance relationship wouldn’t be good, so they have technically ended their relationship. However, they are still keeping up with regular video chats. Still, Rusty is confident that he made the right choice even though it’s tough to hear Jordan talk about her new life in New York and all the friends she’s making. Rusty’s roomie Dale is having his own online love life, having embraced his newfound anti-God lifestyle by chatting online as a dark, edgy character with another chat user called Vampira 69. When Calvin suggests that both guys get back to seeking real-life, in-person love and takes them to a club, Rusty bombs out with a cute girl whom Calvin sends over to talk to him. The night ends up being a wash, but Calvin thinks maybe it’s because the club just wasn’t Rusty’s scene. When Dale’s online lady friend suggests that they meet up at the Comi-Con in Cincinnati, Rusty and Dale’s pal Calvin sees the chance for a guys’ roadie that can also help shake Rusty from his Jordan funk. The trio pile into Calvin’s SUV and make the trip, arrving at the convention center in the midst of a traffic jam. While they wait, a girl from another car spots Rusty, thinks he’s cute and yells out to come find her once they get inside the convention. He does just that, tracking down the green-body-painted chick amidst a sea of similarly-attired girls. When he finally does find the girl, Sally, Rusty gets extremely awkward and says one stupid thing after another about he and Sally getting into a relationship, her meeting his family, etc. She’s predictably horrified and ends their conversation quickly, leaving Rusty thinking that maybe he made the wrong move in ending things with Jordan. He tries to call her but can’t get a signal, so instead he settles for the next best thing: commandeering a computer backstage at one of the convention’s seminars, a live video chat with a former Star Trek cast member. The video chat doesn’t go well, with Jordan telling Rusty that it sounds like he wants to be in relationship more than he wants to be with her. When the tail end of the video chat ends up being projected up onto the video screen in the seminar room, everyone there sees Rusty’s rejection and embarrassment. The convention doesn’t go much better for Dale, who is disappointed when he finds out that Vampira 69 is none other than his former flame, cougar landlady Sheila. Each of them is shocked to learn that they’ve been chatting without knowing who the other person really was, but Sheila is still willing to sleep with Dale. He is hesitant to reconnect with her now because she broke his heart the first time around and at the end of the night, decides that starting things back up with Sheila isn't what he wants. As the guys pile back into the car and drive home, Dale realizes that he does want to renew an old relationship, just not the one with Sheila. Instead, he decides to go back to his religious ways and reconnect with God. Another renewed relationship was Ashleigh and boyfriend Fisher, back together after she broke up with him for kissing her ZBZ sister Rebecca. But getting back together proves awkward because both Ashleigh and Fisher are on edge around one another, with neither wanting to say or do anything that could in any way upset or offend the other and ruin their reunion. Fisher won't admit that he hates one of Ashleigh’s favorite movies, Clueless, and she won't fess up to having no interest in the old, classic movies that he and his film club enjoy watching. In the end, Ashleigh sits Fisher down for a talk and tells him that they need to relax and be more honest with each other. The message finally gets through and at the end of the episode, he finds her at Dobler’s, shares a few harsh truths he’s been holding back on and shows that he’s able to be himself with her. On the other hand, Casey spends the entire episode trying to figure out why Evan and Cappie aren’t acting like themselves. She suspects that they are friends again but keeping it a secret, so she sets about trying to find out the truth. First, she texts Cappie and claims that Evan came clean to her and admitted that the two of them were friends again. To counter, Cappie and Evan stage a fake fight on campus as Casey tries to get Cappie to cop to the story Evan allegedly told her, which is of course a lie. The fight starts well enough, but when some nearby Kappa Tau’s and Omega Chi’s se the fight, don’t know it’s fake and join in, things spin out of control. Punches are thrown, tables overturned and headlocks are applied. But the fight accomplishes its purpose and Casey is thrown off the trail - or so it seems. She is put back on the trail when she meets Cappie at Dobler’s for an “I’m sorry” beer and on the way out, he uses an exact quote that Evan used with her the day before. Now more sure than ever that her theory is correct, Casey has Ashleigh deliver bugged fruit basket to the KT house and hides out in an empty hot tub behind the house to listen. The bug doesn’t pay off because no one says anything incriminating, but when Cappie leaves the house Casey follows him and inadvertently stumbles into the secret lair of the Amphoras, the secret society of which Cappie and Evan are members. Having an outsider find their lair enrages the other Amphoras, who debate whether or not to kick Cappie and Evan out of their group. Ultimately, the group decides not to give them the boot but rather to offer Casey membership. She goes through with the mandatory emotional purge, spilling her most personal secrets to the group, but deciding in the end that she just doesn’t belong with the Amphoras. For her, agreeing with Cappie and Evan to try and get back to all being friends like they were freshman year is enough. Cappie agrees to this even though he’s pissed at Evan for admitting to Casey that he stopped Cappie from going to talk to (and get back together) with Casey during last seasons’ KT “End of the World” party. That basically sums up the episode, some solid laughs and a decent dose of drama, leading to next week’s episode in which Cappie yet again agonizes over to try and get back together with Casey again. Until then………….