I totally agree with you, that's why I love perl so much, and I did take a look at the IO::Select module source, however, it also uses the select and vec functions the same way I saw them used in the perl-chat example. and while the module would save me time, and alot of grief, there are no deadlines and I'm a masochist :P so its all good.. what I'd really like to know, is not "how to deal with multiple connections" but, I guess some more examples or a new explanation of the 4 arg select, and vec(). I might look at these two functions, and just go, "well hot damn, I could use that for ______", something using IO::Select won't totally give me :P
Basically, I have the concept down, multiple file handles that you can read/write to, that are being "watched" and you form them using the "vec()" function, but I can't translate that into code and vice versa for some reason.. I just need a different look at it I guess.

and once again, thanks for the great help, this site rules!

-brad..