Not true; select will wake your process if there are any pending filehandle events (read/write/error), before the timelimit is up. The argument is simply a timeout, after which control is returned to your program, assuming no events occur.

If your problem with select is that it doesn't allow you to wait on the other types of events, then it would help if you mentioned exactly what sorts of events you're catching. In the meantime, I'd suggest looking at Event (or POE, which I don't particularly like).

   MeowChow                                   
               s aamecha.s a..a\u$&owag.print