I couldn't get that mess out of my mind. So I went back and wrote the whole thing as I might do it. It really is a simple task and probably doesn't require all of the mucking around with Time::Local and such.

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;

my $in_file="default.db";
my $out_file="myproperdates.db";

open (IN,"$in_file")    or die "Couldn't open $in_file: $!\n";
open (OUT,">$out_file") or die "Couldn't open $out_file: $!\n";

my $year = substr((localtime)[5], -2); # Purposeful. No y2k issue. See
+ below.
my @month = qw( Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec );

while(<IN>){
  # This is meant to deal with 2 digit dates. Its y2k issues aren't it
+s own.
  s!(\d\d?)/(\d\d?)/(\d\d)!"$2-$month[$1-1]-".($3 > $year ? 19 : 20).$
+3!ge;
  print OUT;
}

close IN;
close OUT;
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-sauoq
"My two cents aren't worth a dime.";