Events from my trip home

Well I managed to spend just slightly over 24 hours at my house. Points therefrom
-despite staying here fri to "do work" I got precious little work done this weekend, this will bit me in arse, soon
-Note to local news people: A meeting of local Christian leaders is not an assembly of "all faiths." And no, it doesn't count if one guy's brother's wife's housekeeper's second cousin is Jewis. I loathe local news for numerous reasons. Largely because it has such a proclivity for being blantantly wrong(as opposed to national news which has a tendency to be subtlely wrong (except Fox news which loves to be blantantly wrong and then make a big deal out of how right they are)). Moveover almost every time I see local news there's a story of the form:
Local family adopted a *pet of unusual type*. neighbors *complained/waged war/killed said pet* family is now running a campaign to *save/avenage death of pet with heidiously ironic name like spot*. This is news!?
My philosphy with current event has become "if it's important it'll show up on slashdot, boingboing, or some other site I read" It's worked rather well.

-My little brother is amazing. Everytime I see him, he's learned an large number of new things and his vocabulary has easily doubled. What strikes me most is his capacity for pattern recognition. He can see how someone reacts in a given situation and either mimic their reaction a long time later or apply in a slightly different way. For instance, riding in the car today, he dropped something and he would normally say "opps" or "oh no." But today he surprised everyone by screaming "Aw, Damn It!" It was too funny. He's also incredibly curious, leading me to wonder what is it in our society which kills curiousity in most of us? Feyman wrote that it was the innate question of "why?" that drives all great`scientific discovery I'm sure my little sister was much the same way at his age, but I don't think I had the capacity to realize when I was 5 years young. There's definately something to me said for having a sibling so much younger than you, I think you appreciate it more.
-Sorry about the affirmative action post being so long. It should have been split into parts but I couldn't find a good breaking point. Please read it and give me your comments at somepoint though.
That's it for now, off to watch my tape of Desperate Housewives.......
(yes I love that show, don't criticize my love unless you've seen it)
-CI