>>"Isn't the problem that you don't know the pid to kill?"
Er, when i call kill on the pid for mpg123, nothing happens, it just continues on merrily. (maybe b/c its cygwin or something)

As to the printing thing, you're right, i just didnt have enough binmodes in there. I'll try again using binmode.

And quick update to my root node, where it says "one that would 'waste' all the resources", should read "would not waste..", as that actually makes sense.