OK, if it's just a connect to 80, let's do this (again with less typing):

use IO::Socket;
for my $host(qw(www.slashdot.org www.deja.com www.perlmonks.org)) { 
  IO::Socket::INET->new("$host:80") or warn "cannot connect to web of 
+$host\n"; 
}
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-- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker