Step by step explanation:

$r="313134313032313138303335313136313131313134313131313235303431313231313235313232313130303436303437303438303439303530303531303532313239";

This is a trivial encoding of the following string:

"ret pjlhu orna       l"

How it works is the iterator takes six characters at a time and pack("H6")s
them (since these are all digits, 313134 => 114), and then puts the chr() value
in an array for lookup later. Just for fun I made it a little more complex and
incremented the value by one going along, so:

313134 => 114 - 0 => 114 => r
313032 => 102 - 1 => 102 => e
313138 => 118 - 2 => 116 => t

etc.

$|++;while($r=~s/([0-9]{6})/the perl journal/&&($s=$1)){push(@q,chr(pack("H6",$s)-$g++));}

This does the above; a little misdirection with "the perl journal" :-)

while(<DATA>){/[JUNK^FOOD]/&&die"\n";print$q[$_=~s/[\$*]//g];}

DATA is grabbing this cool ASCII art:

        $                                        $        .
    $      $   .            $           *            $       .   *         $
                *              .
  $                    $              .                             $
         $         .                 *              .         *       $
    * 
                              $$$  $$$$ $$$  $          .
                              $  $ $    $  $ $
               .              $$$  $$   $$$  $
                              $    $    $ $  $
_____________________________ $    $$$$ $  $ $$$ ______________________________
                .            /    /$$$$\ \  | \$$$                  $
  .       .           .     /    /        \ |   \      .      .
               .           /$$\ /$$$$$$$$  \$$\   \        .
$    $   $$$$$$$$$        /   //            \   \   \   .          *      $
   .     $  THE  $       /$$//$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ \$$$\    \
         $  PERL $                                        $
   .     $JOURNAL$    .                    $      .     .      *
         $ 1998! $              *        .           $               .
         $$$$$$$$$

and counting the number of * and $ in it. The total number is used to look up
the proper letter in @q and to unscramble the string, so you get

"the perl journal "

It stops on the JOURNAL line. Remember, junk food makes you die. Easy, huh?

Cameron Kaiser
