my $date =`/bin/date +'%m%d%y'`;
chomp $date;

my $LOG = "log.$date";

# another way to do that is to use perl internals instead of a sub-shell:

{
  my ($d,$m,$y)=(localtime)[3..5];
  my $perldate = sprintf "%02d%02d%02d", $m+1, $d, $y-100;

  die "This should never happen: $perldate != $date" 
      if $perldate ne $date;
}

##</code><code>##

while (<HANDLE>) {
    next unless ( /FREEZING media id (.*)/ );
    print "I am FREEZING $1\n";
}