[perl] tag is a cruel joke, and user-defined tags don't do jack , squat. HELP! How do I use Perl!?

[Colocator User <minivend@twu.net>]

Hey there MiniVend gurus--

	Just started with the program, and I'm trying to utilize a Perl
script I've written from within a MiniVend page. The [perl] tag is a cruel
joke; you can't use backticks (due to that stupid Safe module, which I'd
rather not turn off if I don't have to) or even print statements (!!!!!);
all you can use seems to be setting and returning variables, which is
unacceptable. I need more than that!

	I tried to define the Perl I want as a user tag. It did squat.
First of all, the syntax listed on the Web site for defining a user tag is
horrible-- MiniVend chokes on it when starting up. Secondly, when I
finally DID find a way of arranging the damned curly-braces so that it
wouldn't puke on my user tag, the user tag did SQUAT!

	They say the best way to learn is by example. Could someone give
me an example-- or more than one example-- of a way to display the output
of:

print "Hi there";

...in a MiniVend page?

	Flames or "RTFM"s will be passed on to /dev/null. Please give me a
real answer.

	Incidentally, the MiniVend FAQ ***SUCKS***. Perhaps something more
like the Perl FAQ is in order-- where it's more of an "all questions we've
been asked that have a simple--or even a not-so-simple-- answer" list than
a "frequently asked questions" list. The MiniVend FAQ only answers the
simplest of stupid questions...