from  perldoc DBI in the Handling BLOB / LONG / Memo Fields section:

       When trying to insert long or binary values, placeholders
       should be used since there are often limits on the maximum
       size of an (insert) statement and the the quote entry
       elsewhere in this documentmethod generally can't cope with
       binary data.  See the section on /Placeholders and Bind
       Values.
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in general, longs and lobs suck to deal with. in Perl or anywhere else. If you can avoid them in any way you can think of, do.

"sometimes when you make a request for the head you don't
want the big, fat body...don't you go snickering."
                                         -- Nathan Torkington UoP2K a.k.a gnat