Call to you clever programmers out there

I have a fun idea for an "enter your username" meme, which would involve interrogating the LJ database, but I have no idea how to write it. I've browsed the developer area of LJ, and skimmed a few sites on CGI and Perl, but I don't really know what I'm doing.

Can anyone point me in the direction of helpful websites/communities?

And gnimmel or purplepiano is there anything I should know if I want to put this on the fluffhouse server?