No need to invoke all that very heavy and possibly not installed Net::Telnet stuff. Just open the socket!

#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use IO::Socket::INET;

my $c = IO::Socket::INET->new("bofh.jive.org:666") or die "connect: $@
+";
while (<$c>) {
  next unless /Your excuse is: (.*)/;
  print ucfirst $1, "\n";
  exit;
}
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Use Net::Telnet when there'll be terminal-like interaction with prompts and telnet protocol things. If it's just a socket, use the socket code!

-- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker