Foot-in-mouth disease got the better of Adam Orth.

Today's lesson is to think before you speak, whether it's in person or especially in social media where your words are essentially carved in virtual stone. Lest anyone need reminded of this, just look at how things played out for Adam Orth, now a former creative director at Microsoft Studios. Less than a week after trolling potential Xbox 720 customers on Twitter about always-on consoles and telling them to #dealwithit, Orth is reportedly out of a job and will have to deal with finding employment.

Uh Redmond, you have a problem, and his name is Adam Orth...

Microsoft has some damage control to take care of, and if any of the decision makers in Redmond have an ounce of sense, they'll issue an official statement, and perhaps an apology, STAT. For what, you ask? Well, it's never good when your games director takes to Twitter to argue with fans over sensitive subjects like always-on digital rights management (DRM), and it's even worse when he cops a condescending attitude the way Adam Orth did. Here's what happened.

Ask Microsoft about its future console plans and the company will pretend that the world revolves around the Xbox 360, that it "found new ways to extend its lifecycle" through the Kinect and other enhancements, and that any talk of an Xbox 720 is merely rumors and speculation, which the company doesn't comment on. Unofficially, however, Microsoft's next console may have entered the production phase.