use strict;
use warnings;

use YAML;

my $header    = qr/^(?!START:|END:)([^*: ][^:]+):(.+)\n/;
my $starttime = qr/^START:\s*(.+)\n/;
my $endtime   = qr/^END:\s*(.+)\n/;
my $lineitem  = qr/^(?:\* |  )([^:]+):(\d+):(.+)\n/;

my %dispatch = (
    $header    => \&header,
    $starttime => sub { $_[0]->{starttime} = $_[1] },
    $endtime   => sub { $_[0]->{endtime}   = $_[1] },
    $lineitem  => sub { push @{shift->{items}}, \@_ },
);

sub header {
    my $r = shift;
    process_record($r);  # first time will be empty record...
    %$r = ();            # clear the record
    $r->{name} = $_[0];
    $r->{desc} = $_[1];
}

my $r = {}; # 'record'
LINE: while (my $line = <DATA>) {
     for my $re (keys %dispatch) {
         my @m = ();
         if (@m = $line =~ /$re/) {
             $dispatch{$re}->($r, @m);
             next LINE;
         }
     }
}
process_record($r);

sub process_record {
    my $r = shift;
    print YAML::Dump($r);
}

__DATA__
The first record:it has only 1 item
START: Tue Feb  1 00:09:30 2005
END: Tue Feb  1 00:19:32 2005
  Item1:10:comment1
The next record:might have more items
START: Tue Feb  1 00:39:07 2005
END: Tue Feb  1 00:42:46 2005
  Item1:4:comment2
* Item2:1:comment3