1. Top Gear is one of the most original, funny, and eye-popping shows I’ve ever seen. And I’m definitely not a gear head.
2. It really isn’t the heat – it’s the humidity.
3. Indeed, distance does make the heart grow fonder.
4. Don’t swear on Twitter. Actually, don’t lose your cool, in general.
5. There are always – always – two sides to every story.
6. The production side of newspapers is not only really, really important, but it’s really, really fun as well.
7. There is nothing nice to be said about airports. Nothing.
8. I am nothing without my iPhone. Nothing.
9. I am quite terrified to live in a place which does not give pedestrians the right of way.
10. The amount that feral cats in the Middle East are well-fed is directly proportional to the distance to a western-populated office.
11. Lemon mint juices are not only inexpensive, but a great way to cool off in the heat.
12. I’ve learned more working with a bunch of British journalists in one day than I ever have at journalism school.
13. Living off $1 sharamas may seem like a great way to cut food costs, but your stomach will not appreciate it after the third day of greasy chicken wraps.
14. There’s really no point in walking in the Middle East. Your car is your second home.
15. I don’t miss rain or snow as much as I originally thought.

There’s probably more, but these are the only ones I can think of right now.

I’m in the market for a car. It’s hard to not be for one here in the UAE. Driving is a necessary evil here, after all.

I’ve been driving a Toyota Yaris rental for a few months now at the expense of roughly Dh2,000 a month (about $600) that includes insurance and servicing, but no amount of money is worth the emasculation of my manhood by driving that car.

So, as i venture out into the role of “new car buyer”, I look at my options. In the UAE, there’s a greater prevalence of people driving luxury-models – the Mercedes-Benz’s, BMW’s, Lexus’s, etc. – than any other place I’ve been to. Oil money spurs desire, I suppose. A 4-5 year loan is manageable with rates hovering around 4%, even though I don’t really plan on staying here that long and I’ll likely provide a decent down-payment.

That said, the amount of those cars swerving around me has fueled my interest in becoming a luxury driver myself. As I keep telling myself, I doubt there’ll be any other time in my life I’ll be able to afford such wheels.And with so many people leaving the Emirates for personal and professional reasons, there is no other time to buy a car in the UAE.

So, a Beemer-huntin’ I go. I’ve seen a few and I’m in no real rush to buy one. Initially, I’ve focused my search within Abu Dhabi, given that it is quite a headache to “export” your car from another emirate state within a two-day window and “import” it back into my hometown for approximately Dh300 ($100).

The first car, a 2004 BMW 530i, seriously tested my patience. Not just because I really wanted it as soon as I started driving it, but it was the aggressive nature of the Egyptian man selling it to me. He initially offered Dh73,000 (About $22,000) but was willing to go down to Dh70,000 if I paid all in cash. After I drove it, I waited a week before calling him again and asked to see it again. A paraphrase of the conversation:

Me: Hi, I’d like to see the car again, if it’s still available.

Him: You want to buy the car?

Me: No, I just want to test-drive it again. I haven’t made up my mind.

Him: Why have you not made up your mind? You don’t like it?

Me: I haven’t said that. I just want to see it again.

Him: OK. But you have to put a deposit of Dh1,000 to drive it again.

Me (stunned): Huh? Why? I just want to see it

Him: You drive it very hard last time. You pushed on the brakes too much.

Me: But how else can I test the brakes? I even made sure you knew what I was doing when I did it.

Him: I take very good care of my car. You have to trust me. If you don’t want to pay deposit, you will not drive car.

Me *stunned): Um, alright. Good luck selling it.

And that was that. I’ve since read that putting a deposit to test drive a car over here, but it’s borderline insulting to me to be forced to do that. I’m a good, honest driver with a clean driving record in the 10-plus years I’ve on the road, and I’m certainly not going to be forced to pay in good faith something which I feel is quite unnecessary, especially after test driving it once already.

In any case, I decided to expand my search and look to Dubai, knowing full well that I’ll have a little headache transferring it over here, I found a couple BMW’s for decent prices, including one formerly owned by Sheikh Mansour – the so-called “Rainbow Sheikh” – a member of the ruling party whose car collection has endeared him to the local media.

Anyways, this car was listed for Dh50,000 ($15,000), a great price for a 2003 BMW 530i with only 75,000 km on it. Unfortunately, the Californian who is selling it thought he typed Dh65,000 instead. I’m planning on seeing it later this week, but needless to say, I’m still willing to hold out until I find the right car out there.

Then there was this beauty (site is now taken down): a 2006 BMW with only 10,000 driven on it, offered for Dh40,000. i e-mailed the owner and got this reply:

Hello,
I am from London, United Kingdom.
I have a work contract in Dubai and I need a car so I bought it.
I must sell because I moved back to the UK and it is quite difficult to drive a European car with the steering wheel on the left. The car is now in London in excellent condition, no accidents, no scratches, no dents, no need for additional repairs and have all the necessary documents for sale.
It is guarded by a car garage, maintened well. The final price is 40.000 AED including shipping and insurance. I agree to give you a few days for the test. The car comes with a rating of own history and numbers. Is being recorded in Dubai this would be no problem to cancel the recording and turn on you. I spoke with one of my friends in Dubai and he said there was no need for me to come down to close the case in person because there are many companies that can handle these situations. So I made a bit of research work and have found a local company. I asked how much it will cost for such a transaction and they indicated to me to offer the delivery address (so they can calculate shipping costs). In case you’re still interested please let me know the address where you want it to be delivered so the company can calculate the cost.
Thank you.

So, the car isn’t actually in Dubai and I have to trust that the car is indeed in pristine condition before agreeing to transfer the funds over so it can get shipped over to me. Oh, and there’s no phone number to talk the car over on the phone. The scam siren went off in my head shortly after reading that, so I won’t be suckered into that one.

The search continues…

Much ink has been spilled over the news that Abu Dhabi being awarded the headquarters for the International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena), and rightfully so. The new organization will be yet another mark on the world map for the emirate. But how will it change the country’s attitude towards actually embracing a “green” lifestyle?

I admit I was skeptical of its chances after it was announced that Abu Dhabi was actively pursuing the headquarters. For one, it was vying for Irena against Germany, a country in which I was regaled with many tales of its environmental stewardship during my time pursuing an environmental engineering degree. Secondly, aside from its lofty aspirations of building Masdar City, a planned carbon-neutral city and the “most ambitious sustainable development in the world today”, Abu Dhabi is known primarily as an oil exporter and less so as a “green” hub.

Diplomatic lobbying and logical reasoning certainly helped secure Irena in the UAE, the first major UN affiliated organization that will be headquartered in the Arab world. And while it is important that Abu Dhabi makes a conscious push towards becoming an environmental sustainable hub, it’s hard to see much progress happening right now.

Coming from a country which pioneered recycling, it always distresses me to keep throwing out recyclable materials because there are no proper disposal bins around. In fact, there has not been much of a word of a new recycling bins since they were announced this past March. The only true recycling depot in the city is apparently at Spinney’s, a supermarket which caters to the western expatriate crowd.

I haven’t taken much public transportation, and while the bus system is doing well and everyone is looking forward to Dubai’s upcoming metro lines, the UAE is firmly a car culture. The country is not pedestrian-friendly, always having to dodge speeding and undisciplined cars, and the idea of covering the city in bike lanes is instantly dismissed given the soaring temperatures.

Water usage and bottled imports remains high, largely in part due to our proximity to the desert, and the rising cost of desalinating sea water. And the tap water is said to be harmful, at least to one’s scalp, evidenced by the amount of brand-name shampoo bottles at a local supermarket which are said to “prevent the loss of hair from falling out”. Don’t even get me started on McDonald’s, which seems to use the reminants of styrofoam packaging in their meals decades since it went out of style back in North America.

The result is a hazy, un-green lifestyle which it appears everyone living here has become resigned to. It is an unfortunate situation. But, like everything I’ve seen here, there is long-term hope, which I’ve mentioned above. Public and educational campaigns should be the norm, never mind the Heroes of the UAE campaign which I don’t feel drives the message home enough. Back home, a mix of scare tactics and economic realities helped persuade the public that environmental conservation is the right way to go.

It’s too bad that it might take the landing of a prestigious international energy organization to possibly open the eyes of a nation towards a true environmental attitude shift. But, if it truly is the catalyst for change, well, all the better. Just as long as I can find a green bin to recycle my paper, glassware and plastics in.

If there’s one major gripe I can share during my brief tenure here in the United Arab Emirates, it’s that driving in the country is one of the most horrible and dangerous experiences I have ever had.

I can’t really say that I’m a prolific driver, which makes my unscientific assumption all the more unreliable, as the only thing I can really compare driving here to is the mean streets of Montreal. Its lassez faire attitude, single lane-ways and unmarked road lines makes driving there uncomfortable, slightly stressful but tolerable.

It’s a different story here in the UAE. While I admit I’m a pretty cautious and courteous driver, I can’t say the same for my counterparts on the road. Every time I venture out onto the road, it’s the same scenario – speeding trucks, taxis which never signal while changing lanes and countless SUV’s who liberally use high-beams, horns, and natural intimidation to literally force you to get out of their lane. Pedestrian right-of-way is a completely foreign concept here, making each trip across the street a highly risky real-life version of Frogger. My colleague, Jen Gerson, shares her own thoughts in a recent blog post.

Not only is it dangerous, but in a way, it’s commonly accepted that drivers here have an arrogant, if not unwieldy power while on the roads. While the reasons behind its prevalence could be a cultural issue, I also believe a large part of the community, notably Indian and Pakistani expatriates who make up a significant part of the driving population, have not received the same safety training programs that we have in North America. Instead of rigorous training sessions with one-on-one training, it often feels that people just grab a set of car keys and just learn “on the road”.

It is no surprise, then, that the UN’s World Health Organization have labelled UAE’s roads as some of the most dangerous in the world:

[The WHO used] 2007 figures to calculate that they account for 37.1 deaths for every 100,000 residents.

According to figures gathered by police in the UAE, there were 2,138 pedestrian/vehicle accidents in 2008 compared with 2,022 the year before. The high number of pedestrian fatalities contributes to the UAE’s high overall traffic death toll – 1,071 in 2008, up from 1,056 in 2007.

There were 26 pedestrians killed in Abu Dhabi during the first two and a half months of this year; 24 people died crossing roads in Dubai during the same period. There were 754 pedestrian/vehicle accidents in Dubai last year, compared with 665 the year before. Last year 663 pedestrians in Abu Dhabi were struck by cars, up from 583 in 2007.

To highlight the problem, The National (my employer), has begun a road safety campaign, a noble approach in attempting to fix this major problem. I have no inside information to what will be published, but I do get the impression this issue will be pushed very hard in the foreseeable future.

Will it fix the problem? I don’t know, although I hope it makes a big impression on the local community. However, I really hope one of the results of the campaign is pushing road safety education so every driver here follows the law, regardless of how fast you need to get to your destination.

Because, as the old cliche goes, one child’s death caused by reckless driving is one death too many.

Out of all the otherworldly stuff I’ve experience here in the Middle East so far, none has really left me both shaking my head in both amazement and confusion than the Burj Dubai.

As evidenced by the video I’ve posted above, the Burj Dubai is the tallest free-standing structure in the world, larger than my hometown’s beloved CN Tower.

The tower, estimated to be 890.7 metres high and its cranes are currently scheduled to be dismantled this August. But what the Burj Dubai will mean for the city is unknown. Although the Burj is almost completed, it still remains much of a mystery to the rest of the world. Its developer, Emaar Properties, is not doing any press for the building,

The CN Tower, a similiar towen that projects into the sky with the same wanton desire the Burj Dubai has, ultimately found itself in the hearts of Torontonians only several years after the criticism over its purpose died down. It was also built at a time where Toronto was experiencing a property boom of sorts, leading the charge for the SkyDome and a number of waterfront properties to be built around it.

Dubai, as a city, is in the middle of a fairly large-scale transformation as well. After spending years building residential and hotel condominiums across the city as well as a reputation for excess and luxury, the expatriate population is projected to dramatically fall this year, just under 20% by some estimates. The exodus has led some media outlets to begin writing off the city, plaguing it with bad press.

While I disagree with the majority of the negative publicity Dubai is getting, it still faces a lofty goal of coming to terms with what the city’s identity will look like, even though Dubai currently has the Burj Al Arab, another iconic building in the Emirate.Regardless, to me, Dubai serves as the perfect case study on how architecture can influence how the inhabitants of a city react to its environment.

I don’t know how the city, one with such a migrant expatriate population, will accept the Burj Dubai and influence the rest of the city. I also don’t think I’m the right person to answer that question. But at the very least, it’ll be interesting to see how it all plays out over here.

And now a special treat, a video of the dancing fountains at the base of the Burj Dubai and right outside the Dubai Mall, an equally monstrous addition to the city’s skyline. Enjoy.

I had a recent feature article published in The National’s weekly magazine on the rise of design hobbyists who have begun creating three-dimensional buildings of Dubai and Abu Dhabi within the Google Earth sandbox.

It was a very fun story to work on but the online story missed a few important elements for readers who would want to try their hand what Google Earth has to offer.

First of all, images like you see above and in the story may not contain the entire library of buildings available to Google Earth users. This is understandable given that the 3D Buildings layer in GE contains buildings which Google itself deems has met their standards

To find those buildings, users have to download the KML file from Google Earth’s 3D Buildings Warehouse file suppository where you can search for buildings in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, respectively.

Furthermore, you can search for the buildings built by Chris Bence and Anis Tumallah, the two guys I profiled in the story. Chris’ version of the Sheikh Zayed Mosque can be found here.

Some personal notes on the story: I know I briefly mentioned this at the end of the story, but the potential for Google Earth to boost sagging tourism revenue is enormous. Dubai may be under the media’s microscope right now as it struggles to maintain its glitzy position as one of the world’s foremost tourism destinations, but if I had a chance to offer a suggestion to the emirate’s toursim heads, it would be to get your city mapped out on Google Earth immediately. I remember the crown of coworkers gathering as I zoomed through the buildings I downloaded littering Sheikh Zayed Road. And the city has only a fraction of its skyline designed, mostly by amateurs. Imagine what it would look like if a design company – or a group of design students – were given a decent budget and a mandate to build out the rest of the city.

Another comment I’d like to make is just how extremely easy it is to make these buildings. Although Chris Bence has a background in design and Photoshop, once you get the hang of Google Sketchup, building something you actually can see in real life and then make for the rest of the world to see themselves is addicting. I haven’t made anything worth uploading yet, but it doesn’t take much effort to digitally erect a structure in Google Earth.

All in all, it was fun to meet some of the people who get to build UAE digitally, emulating in a way the country’s propensity in building soaring skyscrapers brick by brick.

Photo courtesy of Crane Country, as I’m in Beirut right now and don’t really have access to my own stockpile of Google Earth 3D buildings.

The debate stemmed from this NYT article which provides a few examples which Techcrunch and Gawker have posted rumours, correcting them by updates, and links the practice to ‘yellow journalism’, the jargon-y name which was coined during W. Randolph Heart’s reign at the New York Journal and its coverage of the Spanish War in the early 20th century. (A quick aside, Ken Whyte’s book on Hearst is a highly recommended read)

Neither story was true. Not that it mattered to the authors of the posts. They suspected the rumor was groundless when they wrote the items. TechCrunch noted, 133 words into its story, that, “The trouble is we’ve checked with other sources who claim to know nothing about any Apple negotiations.”

But they reported it anyway. “I don’t ever want to lose the rawness of blogging,” said Michael Arrington, the founder of TechCrunch and the author of the post.

Arrington was understandably upset at the NYT’s charges. In a Techcrunch post, he responds to the NYT, quite angrily, I might add, and defends his craft.

But anyway, media outlets like the NYTimes think that having to update a story is a sign of weakness. I believe the opposite, that it’s a sign of transparency and a promise to our readers to continue to give them the best information we have. Corrections and updates are made constantly to big news posts.

Journalism professor and author of What Would Google Do (again, another excellent book) Jeff Jarvis also argues that the New York Times is in no position to set journalism standards for the rest of the industry, no matter how high its reputation could be.

The problem with this tiresome, never-ending alleged war of blogs vs. MSM (Arrington attacks The Times) and MSM vs. blogs (The Times attacks Arrington) – (Mark Glaser scolded me for rising to The Times’ bait – is that it blinds each tribe from learning from the other. Yes, there are standards worth saluting from classical journalism. But there are also new methods and opportunities to be learned online. No one owns journalists or its methods or standards.

As much as I disagree with Jarvis’s insistence that online news cannot/should not be free, he is absolutely correct in this instance. Whether we like it or not, we’re in a new period of journalism, indeed, all of it is in a ‘beta’ version, with necessary updates needed to move the story further. Elias Bizannes just nails it: technology is enabling us to evolve our ability to communicate a.

A good example: as I type this, the Breaking News Online Twitter account immediately corrected itself after published a message the other day that the President of Gabon has died. It may be impossible to verify such news reports during the noise and confusion of a major event, but once the news got out, it was important that they got the story right.

Furthermore, at my old job at the Financial Post, I’ve made a couple errors in some of my reporting, but I was always quick to correct my copy and update it with full transparency. That’s just the type of environment we, as journalists, should be used to, and more importantly, it’s one that are readers are already used to. In times like these, we can’t afford to let blogs dictate where the industry should go nor should newspapers carry its weight around and tell the industry what to do – the on-going first draft of history will be one that will always be in a constant state of editing and updating, corrections be damned.

Illustration courtesy of Jeff Jarvis

By now, the world is reverberating following the historic speech given by US president Barack Obama in Cairo, Egypt today. Watching the speech in the newsroom, I couldn’t help but think that Obama was consistently on the right track in mending his country’s reputation with the Muslim world. I’m not going to get into it too much, but his remarks of the need for peace, recognition of the need for a Israeli-Palestinian solution and women’s rights were spot on. Obama’s comments, some forceful, some more respectful of the situation, has come at a crucial time for the US as it attempts to navigate through these extraordinary times.

However, as nice it was for Obama to make promises on withdrawing the US troops the time lines he specified in Iraq and Afghanistan, those moves need to actually happen during those given dates for anyone to take his attempts to reach out seriously. That said, I look forward to what Middle Eastern leaders will say about Obama’s rhetoric and whether they are willing to discuss issues without any preconditions.

Above: I’ve created a Wordle using the text in Obama’s speech (You can click the link to go directly to the page hosted on Wordle). For the uninitiated, Wordle is a free online program creates a tag cloud – similar to the one found on my blog  – the displays the size of a word depending on the amount it was used in a block of text. The result is a fascinating display of Obama’s emphasis on the Muslim world and bridging the gap within the larger global community.

Some links regarding the speech to share:

Obama Calls for Alliances With Muslims - Jeff Zeleny and Helene Cooper, The New York Times

Some of Mr. Obama’s language drew appreciative applause from his audience at Cairo University as he delivered a sweeping message that was forceful — and at times scolding — promoting democracy in Egypt, warning Israelis against building new settlements, and acknowledging that the United States had fallen short of its ideals, particularly in the Iraq war.

America changed … and so must the Muslim world – Faisal al Yafai, The National

The call for change, for greater freedom, is echoing through the Muslim world. You can hear it in this very capital. And it can no longer be ignored. We will no longer overlook human rights abuses in foreign countries, even if they are run by our friends. Governments who jail people without trial, who deny basic human rights, who seek to maintain their power through control of dissent, will no longer find America turning a blind eye.

Obama speech carries huge expectations – Patrick Martin, The Globe and Mail

Mr. Obama has achieved at least one thing, even before he left for the Middle East Tuesday night: ticking off the Israelis. It’s been a very long time since an American president prepared to deliver a “vision speech” concerning the Middle East without letting the Israeli leadership in on what he was going to say.

Barack Obama pledges new beginning between US and Muslims – Ian Black in Cairo and Mark Tran, The Guardian

Marking a change from the Bush administration, Obama said: “Israelis must acknowledge that just as Israel’s right to exist cannot be denied, neither can Palestine’s. The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop.”

While Obama had made similar statements to the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, the tone of his remarks before an Arab audience took on a special resonance today.

At the same time he sent a clear message to Palestinian militants to abandon violence, saying: “It is a sign of neither courage nor power to shoot rockets at sleeping children, or to blow up old women on a bus.”

The Cairo Moment – Howard Kurtz, Washington Post

It’s one thing for candidate Obama to deliver a long oration about race or a stratospheric stemwinder at Mile High Stadium. It’s another, as president, to talk about the ancient enmity among Arabs and Jews, Sunni and Shiites, and expect that to have much impact.

The White House, of course, bears responsibility because it promoted today’s event as the president’s first speech in a Muslim country. Obama is certainly more popular in the Muslim world than his predecessor, although not with Osama bin Laden, who tried to steal the show yesterday. Perhaps today’s words, from the son of a Muslim, will be viewed as a welcome olive branch.

The reality show, her third as her previous attempts to secure a new best friend, is said to be filmed in the emirate state over 17 days in July. She’s apparently going to be bringing the guy she’ll be dating around that time and will likely be the usual reality show fare: competitions, rewards ceremonies, a “You’re Fired” eviction and eventually someone gets a rose or $1 million, whatever the final reward really is.

Here’s a good snapshot of what Heckler Spray has to say about all this:

But anyway, now that Paris Hilton has found idiots willing to be her BFF in America and the UK, it’s now time for her to set her sights on a place that she’s almost comically unsuited to – Dubai.

Here’s a better descriptionof the show from Variety (must have been a slow news day for Variety, of all publications, to cover this):

But given Middle East sensibilities, Hirschorn said the Dubai production won’t be quite as racy as the U.S. or U.K. editions.

That means, for example, alcohol — normally a reality TV staple — won’t play a role on this version. And the production has promised to adhere to local cultural sensitivities. Swearing, sexually explicit conversation or risque clothing will be kept to a minimum.

The production had to receive several layers of approval before moving forward; even Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai, had to give his blessing.

According to Hirschorn’s partner, Stella Stolper, Hilton has never been to Dubai before — so part of the show will include her initial reactions to her first trip to the United Arab Emirates.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and bet a few dirhams that her first reaction will be on how extremely hot it will be when she decides to go outside. Look, if its 45 degrees Celsius in the middle of May, it’s not going to get any cooler in July.

Furthermore, by adhering to the area’s cultural sensitives, I’ll be interested to know what exactly she’ll exactly do once she’s here. The middle of the summer is traditionally a period in which the UAE population vacates the region for much more moderate weather, leaving a bevy of empty shopping malls and hotel rooms in their wake.

I normally wouldn’t care or write a blog post about Hilton, but as it happens, I was in the Dubai Festival City mall yesterday and stumbled upon the Paris Hitlon handbag store, a picture of which you can see at the top of this post (Note: this store could have been re-branded for the show, as “Nicky Hilton” is the only store that shows up in the shopping directory). The UAE’s shopping malls aren’t that much different than the one’s we’ve got at home, but a dedicated Paris Hilton-branded store? You definitely don’t see that everyday.

Obviously, I will watch this show. But not because I will desperately want this person to gain a good friend through the eyes of a competitive reality TV show, but because I’m absolutely stunned that this person continues to keep herself in the public eye.

It is arguable that we’ve already begun to see the end of Hilton’s career in the spotlight, and her show in Dubai will only add another nail to that coffin. In her heyday, she was celebrated and widely-mocked for her style and excess, during which the world’s economy soared and grew on the backs of credit. Today is a different story, one in which excess is not only frowned upon, but almost shunned completely. After all, who cares about the girl with a new diamond ring or designer dress when millions of people are suddenly finding themselves in a rare position of struggling to make ends meet.

Of course, its those types of situations that would force people to do things they wouldn’t normally do for a buck. Like entering a reality TV contest to become Paris Hilton’s “best friend.”

I am conscious that addressing this now may not be in my best interest, but after some long thought, I have declined to speak a little bit about what happened. As someone that works in the newspaper industry, one that I truly love being a part of, and ever-so mindful of how keeping quiet could affect my career in this business, I felt that I should at least offer my perspective on what happened.

Yes, I am guilty of one incident in which I conducted poor professional behaviour, and it is something I deeply regret. Although I do not want to get into specifics, the situation was the culmination of two months of attempting to reach a source for an off-the-record discussion and subsequently having private discussions published online without my permission with numerous phone calls to rectify the situation unanswered.

The result was a firestorm of activity on blogs, newspapers, comments, whispers, etc., none of which I appear too kindly in. Some were deserved, some were not.  Also, I received a couple anonymous death threats and an anonymous impersonator hijacked my Twitter account and posted incendiary messages as myself, situations which no one should have to experience.

Although I am proud of a career in which I have not plagiarized, libeled anyone, misquoted anyone and have since cultivated hundreds of trusting  sources, this lapse of judgment was a cold, hard splash of reality. As a technology journalist, the irony of having a widely-publicized event on a new social media platform is not lost on me, nor is the fact that many other writers will now reference what happened in a “what not to do online”-story.

However, I have learned greatly from this incident. I am ever-mindful of what I say online, either through the vacuous void of the Internet in Twitter and this blog post as well as to other people. I also admit that I have some growing up to do – the person I was in February is not the same person I am now. I’ve taken it upon myself to become calmer, less judgmental, more patient – in short, more professional in all of my relationships, whether they be career-related or personal.

An update: Since I’ve posted this entry, I’ve received a considerable amount of traffic as well as several comments. With all my posts, I moderate the comments on this blog. What you see below is the comments I’ve approved for this post, however, I have deleted a number of snide, anonymous negative comments as well. Please understand that I have no real issue with comments but if you feel the need to add some unconstructive feedback, at least have the courage to do so with your real name and e-mail.