While it presents a much steeper learning curve, Template-Toolkit is extremely clever and robust.

use strict;
use warnings;
use Template;
use POSIX;

my $tt = Template->new;
$tt->process(\*DATA, {
   var_day => strftime("%D %r",localtime)}
) or die $tt->error;

__DATA__
[% USE day = date(format => '%D %r') -%]

>>[% var_day %]<<

>>[% day.format(time) %]<<
[download]

Update: fixed funny tyepo -- s/learning curse/learning curve/

L-LL-L--L-LL-L--L-LL-L--
-R--R-RR-R--R-RR-R--R-RR
B--B--B--B--B--B--B--B--
H---H---H---H---H---H---
(the triplet paradiddle with high-hat)