Gaim plugins

Where is the best resource on writing gaim plugins? I want to write a perl plugin that automatically changes my away message every few minutes. I've seen the perl HOWTO, but it really dont' go into any depth at all. i've looked at the c api...and they say the c api is similar to the perl api. so do i just use the c api as a reference? are the subs and stuff exactly the same? or does someone know of a perl plugin that does something similar so i can peek at the source and figure out how it works.//