"Read any good books lately, Jordan?" you ask.

In fact, yes. And it's Jordon, not Jordan.

Last weekend, I read Gerald Tucker's Esperanto translation of George Orwell's Animal Farm (Lanterno, Munich, 1970). Supernaturally astute readers will remember that I bought this book several years ago but never read it, nor had I ever read the original in English. I still haven't read the original, but now I have read it in Esperanto.

I was a little worried that I wouldn't be able to understand it and I'd just get frustrated, but I actually managed to understand enough to know what was going on. I got a lot of the allusions to the Russian Revolution and the Soviet Union and all that. A few words tripped me up, but I was usually able to guess what they meant. Plus, I kind of knew what was going to happen anyway since everyone read the book in, like, fifth grade.

Maybe if I had gotten a translation of a book that's unavailable in English, I would have read it sooner. I guess it kind of took the incentive out of reading it since I knew I could just find it in English. But it's a short book, and I bulldozed through it in a weekend. Nineteen Eighty-Four next? Or, shall I say, Mil Naŭcent Okdek Kvar?

We all need a buck or two or three. My sister is selling our Nintendo 64, which is the only game console either of us has ever had. I'm not much of a gamer, so it's no big deal. I'll always have the memories. We would wash cars to buy a game. They went for $50 apiece back in the day. That's over $60 in today's money. We only had four games; washing cars is tough work. So, what's the asking price for the N64 with two controllers four games? $60. People are already responding to the ad, but they all want a lower price. I say no. $60 or best offer means just that.

YouTomb is a project of MIT Free Culture that lists some of the videos that YouTube has removed due to alleged copyright violations. Incidentally, I hope to get involved in the University of Florida's chapter of Students for Free Culture next year.

Jamie Livingston took one Polaroid snapshot almost every day from March 31, 1979, until his death on October 25, 1997. His friends digitized them, and now his photos of the day are available online. It gets kind of sad, actually. I think the last photo shows him dead.

On a lighter note, here's why you should never order a cake over the phone.