. I don't want it to die but print a msg instead and continue.

Try something like:

open(FILE,"< some_darn_file_or_another") 
       or do_something_else_besides_die();
| 
} 
sub do_something_else_besides_die {
     printf "Belch!\n";
}
[download]

The call to die that you are referring to is not mandatory. You can execute whatever code you want after the or.

Now, the real issue is you need to do some sort of error recovery upon a failed open such that you aren't trying to read/write to an unopened file handle.