Will Probably Be My Picture of the Year

Not even a neck brace and a Sugar Bowl hat could save Petrino.

Sony to make Workforce Cuts

Sony Corp.will cut 10,000 jobs, or 6% of its workforce, as the Japanese electronics conglomerate and its new chief executive try to get back to profitability.

Kazuo Hirai, the new CEO of Sony will make the cuts.

Much of the employee scale-backs will come from Sony’s television division which has been losing money for the better part of a decade to lower-cost competitors such as Samsung and Vizio.

Roughly half of the job cuts will stem from recent deals, including Sony’s sale of a chemicals company last month and a spinoff of its LCD production capabilities into a joint operation with Hitachi and Toshiba.

The cuts apparently going to happen worldwide.

Sony has already cycled through several rounds of severe layoffs, which have claimed tens of thousands of jobs since 2005.

2012 Final Four Refs Selected

The officials working the NCAA semi-final games along with the Championship game have been selected.  It is not known who will work each game, orwho will be the alternate officials, but we do know the refs come from all over the country and the selections mainly come from the major conferences.

Here's the list:

Pat Adams: SEC and SWAC

Roger Ayers: Big East, ACC, SEC

Joe Derosa: Big XII

Tommy Eades: SEC

Verne Harris: MVC, WAC

Les Jones: ACC, Big East

Jamie Luckie: ACC, Big East

Doug Shows: SEC, Big East

Mike Stuart: Big East, Big XII

Mark Whitehead: Big XII and MVC

Some Notes:

Joe Derosa is a former NBA official, Pat Adams has worked 3 Kentucky games throughout the season, and Mike Stuart has worked 3 Louisville games.  Luckie worked the Iowa St/Kentucky game in the round of 32 and Jones called the Sunday game between Kentucky and Baylor.

Joe Derosa

How Much Referees Make During the NCAA Tournament

Right around 98 officials are selected from conferences all over the country to work the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament.

Year after year, a lot of the same refs advance to work in the opening rounds of the tournament and then on to later rounds.

They make take in a nice amout of pocket change for working these games.

$1000 is paid for first-/second-/third-round games, $1,400 fee per regional game, $2,000 per national semifinal or championship game.

All travel expenses and per diem are covered as well for as long as the officials are working games.

A nice amount of bonus money for these guys that work 70-95 games per season.

Starbucks Opens First Juice Bar

Starbucks Corp opened the first store in its new Evolution Fresh juice bar chain on Monday, its biggest move outside of the coffee realm yet.  

Health drinks are big right now and kudos to Starbucks for trying to put their own spin on the juice bar concept.

The first shop, located in an upscale shopping area in Bellevue, Washington, is an affluent city just east of Seattle, will be watched very closely by Starbucks executives and analysts.

"Mixologists" at the new shop dispense a variety of juices - including apple, coconut water, carrot and beet - from taps to create "hand crafted" concoctions with names like "sweet burn" and "field of greens". The 8-ounce drinks sell for $4.99 and the 16-ounce drinks are priced at $7.99.  A tad bit pricey?

Fresh fruit and vegetable juices have gained in popularity in the United States with some health-conscious consumers using them as meal replacements, while others drink them as part of "cleansing" diets.

The world's biggest coffee chain bought Evolution Fresh for $30 million in cash in November to get a piece of that business.