It does look like an html file. I thought that was kind of weird based on it's dot extensions.

I can get to Cpan. Or at least I think I can. When I run the "recent" command from the terminal, I get an error from Safari that I need to download an rss app in order to download the file. Firefox had no problem, so I'm beginning to think my problem could be using the perl that came with the version of MacOS. I think I'm going to give perlbrew a shot

Thanks for your help. It's much appreciated