Since nobody touched these topics, I'll provide some more feedback on your post too:

• Use the tags readmore to wrap around your code... that will help us to quickly read your post and check all code lines if really necessary. That will only help you to improve your changes to get some help.
• Don't use backtips only because you can: you probably can do the same things you need with the Datetime Perl module and much more. There are even "lighter" versions of it on CPAN if you're worried about performance. You will have more control of your code and avoid an unnecessary system call.