*By Ricardo Signes* Back when I first started learning Perl 5, I was excited to find the [Perl Advent Calendar](http://perladvent.pm.org/archives.html). It was a series of 24 or so short articles about useful Perl modules or techniques, with one new entry each day leading up to Christmas. A few years later, the Catalyst crew started the [Catalyst Advent Calendar](http://www.catalystframework.org/calendar/2005). I always liked the Perl Advent Calendars, and kept meaning to contribute. Every time, though there were too many things I'd want to write about -- and mostly they were my own code, so I felt sort of smarmy and self-promoting and never did it. Finally, though, I'm glad to say I have tackled those feelings. I will not shy away from showing off my own code, and I will not worry about having to choose just one thing. This year, I will publish the [RJBS Advent Calendar](http://advent.rjbs.manxome.org/), 24+ full days of cool, useful, or stupid code that I have written and given as a gift to the rest of the CPAN community. I've had a lot of fun working on this project, and it's helped me find and fix a number of little bugs or imperfections in the software I'll be talking about. The first door opens in seven days. I hope it's as fun to read as it was to write. No returns will be accepted. Approximate actual cash value: $0.02 *Ricardo Signes has written [tons of modules on the CPAN](http://search.cpan.org/~rjbs/), including [Dist::Zilla](http://search.cpan.org/dist/Dist-Zilla/), the heir apparent to Module::Starter. He is also a total sweetheart, and has a fuzzy head.*