The more media notes we get together, the happier we'll be

== Fox’s regional game Saturday (12:55 p.m., KTTV Channel 11) takes the Angels’ contest at home against pitiful Texas, with Josh Lewin and Mark Grace (and only 16 percent of the country). The upside is that it leaves Saturday’s Dodgers-San Diego game on FSN Prime Ticket at 7 p.m. with Vin Scully. The Dodgers’ next two Saturday games — at San Francisco on Sept. 8 and home vs. Arizona
on Sept. 15 - are scheduled to be Fox afternoon regional telecasts.

== Not to be prudish, but is the new Carl’s Jr. “Flat Buns” ad (click above), which can be best compared to the old Van Halen “Hot For Teacher” video (click below), really something your kids should be seeing during a Dodgers’ FSN Prime Ticket broadcast? How about the teacher gyrating on the desk about 18 seconds in?

== The next generation of “American Gladiators” is in NBC’s hands, as it has put up a link on its Website alerting/warning us about two casting calls, one of which will be at Gold’s Gym in Venice on Sept. 8. The show’s re-creators are looking both for contestants and Gladiators, so bring your own 8-by-10 glossy, a mouthpiece and some abs of steel.

==Vootage.com has given its site a facelift two years into operation and launches its high school football coverage with tonight's St. Bonaventure at Santa Margarita (with Tom Kelly and Garry Paskwietz on the call), Venice at San Fernando, Birmingham at Crespi, Golden Valley at Littlerock, Dominguez at Centennial, Servite at St Paul and Calvary Chapel at Magnolia.
The website has deals now to carry every Loyola game, all Crespi home games (on delay), all Mater Dei games live (except for its game against Service), every Concord de la Salle games on a delay, a City Section game of the week, three Southern Section games per week, and all Golden Valley’s games on a delay. Most of the delay games will be on the site by Saturday, but some won't be ready until Monday morning. All will be archived. Games with schools in Northern California, Arizona and Oregon will also have a spot on the site this year.

==The LA 36 high school schedule starts with Venice at San Fernando, the first of seven games televised on the channel this season, leading into the playoffs and City final at the Coliseum on Dec. 7. KLCS Channel 58 will also pick up three regular-season games -- Long Beach Poly at Birmingham next week, and also Crenshaw at Dorsey and Garfield at Roosevelt. Randy Rosenbloom will do play-by-play with Dave Marcus on color.

=="Two A Days," the high school football reality show that MTV has aired the last two seasons, will move over to ESPN and be renamed "Varsity Inc.," set to debut in November, according to the New York Post. West Monroe (La.) High will be the featured team, because coach Don Shows says he has been assured ESPN will focus on football instead of the personal lives of the players, which is what the MTV show did with the Hoover (Ala.) High squad. And, what NBC's prime-time show, "Friday Night Lights," has tried to push as a drama series that somehow enters its second season this fall. In 2005, ESPN tried a high football reality show called "Bound For Glory," where former NFL star Dick Butkus went to Montour (Penn.) High near Pittsburgh as the pseudo head coach and then quit on the team with two games left with the team floundering at 1-6.

==The first roadie for the 21st season of ESPN's "College GameDay," on Saturday (7 a.m.) goes live from Blacksburg, Va., to set the scene for the East Carolina-Virginia Tech (which ESPN carries at 9 a.m.). Chris Fowler hosts it for his 18th season, with Lee Corso (there from the beginning), Kirk Herbstreit (11th year) and Desmond Howard (third year). The show moves from outside the stadium to inside for the second half of the show to air the pre-game ceremonies starting at 8:45 a.m. that will focus on the recent tragedy on the campus. Otherwise, one of the show's features will be Shelley Smith on USC quarterback John David Booty’s off-season conditioning after a back injury bothered him a year ago.

==PGATour.com plans to continue show all the shots at the par-3 16th hole, or about 30 hours of coverage live for free, during this weekend's Deutsche Bank Championship at the TPC Boston in Norton, Mass. Viewing goes from 5:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. today and Saturday, and from 7 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Sunday and Monday. The Golf Channel has the first two rounds starting at noon each day (repeating at 5:30 p.m.) and NBC goes on at noon Sunday and 11 a.m. Monday.

==Viewer voting begins with the final five projects that have made the last cut of the Golf Channel's "Fore Inventors Only" reality series, leading into the last episode on Tuesday at 7 p.m.
Comedian George Lopez will co-host the final live finale with Rich Lerner from the network's Orlando, Fla., studios.
The five inventions that viewers can give the thumbs up or down via the Golf Channel's Website, in order of how we'd vote:
=Z-Factor Perfect Putting Machine: A portable putter training aid that guides the user through proper path, face, angle and pendulum swing of the putter. Inventor: Dean Thompson, Boise, Idaho.
=Hill Shot Golf Trainer: A sloped hitting tee used for practicing uphill, downhill and side hill lies. Inventor: Brandi and Larry Koch, Prospect, Ky. (Gotta admit, this couple kinda creeps me out ... note the height difference in husband and wife).
=Club Glider: A golf travel bag that integrates extendable legs with caster wheels, making the bag easy to push or pull. The wheels fold back into a locked position for easy travel. Inventor: Gary Sherrell, Maple Valley, Wash.
=Club Caddy: A clip that that resembles a clothes pin that attaches to a golf club around the green allowing it to become free-standing in an upright position. Inventor: David Jones, Martinez, Ga.
=Pro Play Golf Performance System: A small digital recording device that can be used on the golf course to record golf swings for instant feedback. Inventors: Marcus Bohn, Chandler, Ariz., and Tim Kipley, McKinney, Texas.
No, none of the finalists were from the contestants we interviewed back in July who had ideas such as a chair that attaches to the bumper, a putter with a hole in the shaft to better line up the break and, ahem, a song. There were the 103 who made the first cut after more than 1,000 submitted their bizarre ideas.
The winner of this competition gets shelf space at Golfsmith for one year; an infomercial and $50,000 worth of commercial and promo time on the Golf Channel. The losers get to fill out applications to the show's second season by clicking onto this Golf Channel link and, at the very least, maybe you'll get to shake Stina Sternberg's ungloved hand.
Here's a link to a video preview of the final episode.

==The Tennis Channel finally launched on DirecTV, finding a home on Channel 217, coinciding with Monday's start of the U.S. Open in New York. A high-def version of the channel is supposed to start at the end of this year.

==The NFL Network has decided that now is as good as any to replay Super Bowl XLI, so set the TiVo for 5 p.m. Tuesday to see that whole shebang that CBS aired on Feb. 4 earlier this year, including the Prince halftime show and that falic guitar solo.

==NBC Sports' Website has a contest. It involves John Madden. Not winning Madden NFL '08, but guessing how long it will take him to cruise in his bus between the season opener on Thursday in Indianapolis and Sunday night's game in Dallas. Be the right guesser on how much time it'll take, and win two tickets to a "Sunday Night Football" game, that includes round-trip airlines, lodging and a tour of the NBC truck and Madden's cruiser.

==CMT, the network devoted to country music, debuts the Paul Newman-narrated documentary it financed called "Dale," about the live of the late Dale Earnhardt, Tuesday at 8 p.m. It'll also air at the same time on Wednesday and Thursday before it goes to DVD. More info: www.dale.cmt.com

==Dick Enberg, John McEnroe and Mary Carillo are together for the seventh year in a row to do the CBS coverage of the U.S. Open tennis championships. starting Saturday at 8 a.m.. CBS has about 37 hours to cover this event.

==Hey, here's a note some media writers here in L.A. were sent this week via email. Let's do an experiment. I'll run it as-is, and you see if it's included in any other newspapers with as little rewriting as possible:
World Championship Sports Network (WCSN) will offer a free live webcast of the World Gymnastics Championships from Sept. 5-9 at WCSN.com. Olympic gold medalist Bart Conner is the featured on-air analyst, and UCLA senior gymnast Tasha Schwikert, a two-time World medalist, 2000 U.S. Olympian and 2005 NCAA all-around champion, will be aiding with color commentary. Schwikert has worked with WCSN on their gymnastics broadcasts since 2005 and did color commentary on two UCLA gymnastics meets on LA36 this year.

==Ripped from the headlines of the most recent edition of The Onion:

==Against all better judgement, Pete Arbogast has been given the green light to continue his blog on WeAreSC.com throughout the season, in addition to his "duties" of hosting a daily show on the USCTrojans.com site. The latest gems of information from the Arboblog is his stirring account of the World Body Surfing competition at Oceanside where, by his calculations, he finished in 26th place because 24 advanced to the second round, and "I scored second out of all of the guys who did not advance ... My placing and score are the best I have ever done."
Bravo.
Unfortunately, none of this has been added to his self-authored Wikipedia entry).
He reports that he missed by .5 of making the second round. "I hate leaving it in practice, but it appears I may have done my best swimming in the practice leading up to the event," he wrote, echoing what all the major failures in athletic events must say to the media covering such a thing.
To put this into some context, the Baltimore Orioles (58-73),currently on an eight-game losing streak, are 26th in Major League Baseball. And that's despite the recent 30-3 loss to Texas.
The newest Arblopost Thursday night typos the name of the gentleman who runs the Trojan marching band, secures the fact he'll never be invited back to do PA for the Dodgers after ripping them, gives Rory Markas a backhanded compliment (and another twist of the knife) and he "hears good friend Paul Olden" is applying for the Clippers radio gig -- which isn't something he could have read in the LA Times, since it wasn't reported there ....

==Finally, Jesse Palmer, once a quarterback at the University of Florida and in the NFL but last seen as the star attraction in the reality show “The Bachelor” back in ’04, has parlayed everything into a job as an ESPN college football analyst job. His focus will be on the ESPN2 Saturday studio shows as well as the “College Football Live” show. Palmer’s relationship with the contest winner lasted just a couple of months and at, last report, Palmer is doing fine with girlfriend Katja Hilgendorff, a supermodel from Germany who probably wouldn’t last a day in Bristol, Conn.