Instead of

open (MYFILE, '>>$file');
print MYFILE "$\@_[0]:$\@_[1]:$\@_[2]:$\@_[3]:$\@_[4]:$\@_[5]:$\@_[6]:
+$\@_[7]:$\@_[8]:$\@_[9]:$\@_[10]:$\@_[11]:$\@_[12]:$\@_[13]:$\@_[14]"
+;
close (MYFILE);
[download]

Simply use:

open (MYFILE, '>>$file');
 print MYFILE join(":",@tapes_to_eject);
close (MYFILE);
[download]

Also,why are you escaping to shell to touch the file? open takes care of this. You should also get the date using a Perl idiom, not the system's date utility.

If you want to use system utilities like this, you might be better of just writing a shell script.