I WANT MY MTV . . ....

I WANT MY MTV . . . PARTY: MTV’s annual spectacle of pop culture, the Video Music Awards, returns home tonight to the Universal Amphitheatre after a year in UCLA’s Pauley Pavilion (F1).

A PENTAGON PLUS: The Pentagon’s restructuring plan to cut the size of the nation’s armed forces is a mixed bag for Lockheed Corp. in Calabasas . . . One plus is that the Pentagon remains committed to Lockheed’s new F-22 Stealth fighter project, which is good news for the company’s “Skunk Works” design center in Palmdale.

SOME LIKE IT MILD: August, normally a time of unrelenting heat in the Valley, was persistently mild this year . . . But forecasters are predicting warmer than normal temperatures this month (B1). . .as Ben Bray of Van Nuys and his sons Damien, 4, and Keenen, 3, found out during an outing at Lake Balboa on Wednesday.

SPACED OUT: The official story suggests that the Mars Observer was doomed by a bad transistor. But Joseph Randazzo of Studio City prefers farther out theories. (B1) . . . Perhaps E.T.s from the Pleiades star system or Orion jammed communications. . . But Randazzo says he knows one thing: NASA isn’t telling us all it knows about the extraterrestrials.

A BUMPER CROP: Last year the Northwest Valley Conference featured a number of offensive players who were growing into their roles. The seeds have now been sown for the conference to demonstrate its power behind its returning big-play backs this season. (C14). . . . Six of the eight teams in the conference will have at least one player back at a ball-handling position. Tailback Jerry Brown of Taft High might be the top back in the conference. Last year, he gained 1,731 yards in 230 carries.