title: Python time.sleep() being ignored in timer program
body: <p>I have been trying to create an extremely simple timer program for the past few days.
  However, I have come across a major roadblock, in which the second delay countdown is just completely ignored when running the program.
  I have tried replacing time.sleep(1) with time.sleep(1000), rearranging it all over the while loop it is in, but to no avail. The program just runs, with no delay neither in the beginning nor during the loop.</p>
  
  <pre><code>import time
  hour, minute, second = 1, 2, 10
  
  print("Starting now.")
  x = 1
  while x &lt; 2:
      print(str(hour) + ":" + str(minute) + ":" + str(second)) 
      time.sleep(1)
      second = second - 1
      if second == 0:
          minute = minute - 1
          second = second + 60
          if minute ==0:
              hour = hour - 1
              minute = minute + 60
              if hour == 0:
                  x = x + 1
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>It would be a great help if someone could figure this out. Thank you!</p>