Actually I used the following subroutine. I guess I was just being lazy but when I thought about it it wasn't much trouble. Thanks monks.

sub time_converter         {
    if ($#_ != 0) {
            print "not correct amount of vars passed";
            return 0;
    }
    my @timearray = split (':', $_[0]);
    unless ($#timearray == 2) {
            return 0;
    }
    return (($timearray[0]*60*60)+($timearray[1]*60)+($timearray[2]));
}
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