my $now = DateTime->now(time_zone => 'America/New_York');
my $then = DateTime::Format::MySQL->parse_datetime($last);


print "NOW: ";
print $now;
print "\n";
print "THEN: ";
print $then;
print "\n";


my $diff = $then->delta_ms($now);

print "\n";
print $diff->in_units('minutes');
print "\n";


##</code><code>##

[root@localhost directory]# ./sql-test.pl 
SQL: 2009-10-06 18:00:00


NOW: 2009-10-05T14:48:09
THEN: 2009-10-06T18:00:00

191