I just bought Fallout New Vegas now where in hell do you get the updates and patches for it. I can't seem to find them anywhere on the web: Even in this asinine Steam. Thank you.

They should download automatically as soon as you activate the game on Steam.

Sounds good, but I don't seem to see any patches downloading.

Perhaps it is all transparent to the user.

Quite possibly Steam has already updated FONV.
Start it and have a look at the version, if its something like 1.2.0.352 it should be updated.

Edit: updated version number

You are correct that it is mostly transparent, there is no download pop-up, there is simply a very small box the rises briefly from your tool bar announcing the completed download (which is very easy to miss). However you need to have checked the box that says "keep my game up to date" or something, in your preferences.

(However, with all the problems introduced with the new patch and Dead Money I'm beginning to regret having done this myself!)