No, you just want something like the following SQL:

"UPDATE sometable SET datecolumn = NOW() where ID=..."

There is no need to generate the date in perl.

Update: by the way, YOU might not be interested in the year (as in, you might not want to show it) but the database can't sort the dates correctly if you don't supply a year: jan 2004 IS later than dec 2003, you see.

Update2: if you have a datetime column, mysql can take care of the output formatting too. You desperately need to take a look at the mysql date and time functions instead of guessing.