For your consideration, here is episode twenty of "It's a Ponderous Life", the place where I offer you the weekly rantings of a middle aged man trying to come to grips with life, where the wife and kids all have their own lives that don't require me, and I get fist shakingly annoyed at the world as I see it.

The world is in an ever evolving state of flux, and nothing proves it more than the recent debate between the two nominees for President of the United States. The fiasco that continues to be the way political debates are held and run is an unfortunate sign of the times, and mirrors what is occurring in social media, journalism and the media as a whole. On today’s episode, I talk a little about debating and review my nerdish tendencies when I speak of my own experience with debating in high school, and also the past history of political debates, before extending that to a discussion on the ills of social media and the state of journalism around the world.

Following this, I then discuss the absolute joy I had over the past week in meeting up with almost complete strangers from across the world as they swarmed to Australia to not only watch Iron Maiden in concert, but meet up with fellow Maiden fans for the first time. It’s a discussion about a mutual love of music that has been nurtured by the good side of the internet and social media, and the wave of podcasting.

So please join me in my quest to get a few things off my chest, in another episodic enlightenment of “It's a Ponderous Life”, right here on Thoughts from the Metal Cavern.