New to Lojban

[BobMichael@aol.com]

Hello all!  As a closet conlang constructor, I've enjoyed reading the lojban
and conlang groups for a few weeks.  Though I've yet to really follow the
more technical posts here, I wonder if you could help me with a couple of
general questions:

1) Though lojban is more a linguistic exercise than a tongue intended for
everyday speech, is there a "Conversational Lojban" primer.  You know,
ordering a restaurant, hello, goodbye, "this suit is not clean!"  I for one
would have an easier time grasping the language if it could be applied to
everyday situations.  Might draw others into its study, too.  

2) Lojban seems to be a rather terse language (I like that!).  Do you have
any idea how many syllables it takes to translate an English passage of say
100 syllables into lojban?  Far prefer lojban to Esperanto, which seems to me
very verbose and exhausting for even the simplest utterances.  

Thanks in advance for humoring a newcomer.  Best to all.

Bob Michael