Thank you, atcroft!

Because I run WinXP and had trouble installing Festival under Cygwin, I modified this (slightly) to use Microsoft Direct Speech Synthesis (part of the Microsoft Speech API). My modifications were based largely on code found here, and of course, lots of assistance from, and hand-holding by, atcroft himself. (Thanks again!)

(99.99% of this is still atcroft's work, and he deserves the credit.)

#!/usr/bin/perl
# by [atcroft] - from [id://465955]
# *minor* mods by [planetscape], based largely on code found here:
# http://www.windowsitpro.com/WindowsScripting/Article/ArticleID/20796
+/20796.html
# CB2Speech.pl

use strict;
use warnings;

use LWP::Simple;
use XML::Simple;

use Win32::OLE qw( EVENTS );
my $DirectSS = new Win32::OLE( "{EEE78591-FE22-11D0-8BEF-0060081841DE}
+" );
Win32::OLE->WithEvents( $DirectSS, \&ProcessEvents, "{EEE78597-FE22-11
+D0-8BEF-0060081841DE}" );

my $fSpeaking;

$| = 1;

my $delay        = 90;

my $seen = 0;
my ($max_retrievals);
{
    my %to_run = (
        days    => 0,
        hours   => 0,
        minutes => 30,
        seconds => 0,
    );
    $max_retrievals = int(
        (
            (
                ( $to_run{days} * 24 + $to_run{hours} ) * 60 +
                  $to_run{minutes}
            ) * 60 + $to_run{seconds}
        ) / $delay
    );
}

my $display_messages = 0;

my $xs         = new XML::Simple;
my $cb_xml_url =
  q{http://www.perlmonks.org/index.pl?node_id=207304};

my $format = sprintf( qq{(%%0%dd) %%s - %%s: %%s\n},
    length($max_retrievals) );
print length($max_retrievals), " ", $max_retrievals, "\n";

while ($max_retrievals) {
    my $said = 0;

    my $cb_xml = get($cb_xml_url)
      or die (qq{Could not retrieve CB XML ticker: $!\n});
    my $ref = $xs->XMLin( $cb_xml, ForceArray => [q{message}] )
      or die (qq{Could not parse CB XML: $!\n});

    if ( exists( $ref->{message} ) ) {

        foreach my $message ( @{ $ref->{message} } ) {
            if ( $message->{message_id} > $seen ) {
                $seen = $message->{message_id};

          my $Phrase = (join ( qq{\t},
                         $message->{author}, $message->{text} )
                         . qq{\n}
                   );
          $DirectSS->Speak( $Phrase );
          $fSpeaking = 1;
          while( $fSpeaking )
          {
            Win32::OLE->SpinMessageLoop();
            Win32::Sleep( 100 );
          }

                $said++;
                printf $format, $max_retrievals,
                  scalar localtime $message->{epoch},
                  $message->{author}, $message->{text}
                  if ($display_messages);

            }
        }
        print qq{Said: $said\n} if ($display_messages);
    }
    $max_retrievals--;
    sleep($delay);
}

sub ProcessEvents
{
  my( $Obj, $Event, @Args ) = @_;
  if( 4 == $Event )
  {
    $fSpeaking = 0;
  }
}
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