You've got your answer already, but on another note, 'use Apache::DBI' and 'use Apache::Registry' do not belong in your scripts. They go in your httpd.conf or startup.pl (see the docs for each and for mod_perl) and they should work transparently in mod_perl and have no purpose in vanilla CGI.

In fact, IIRC, if a script has 'use Apache::DBI' in it then it will no longer run from the command line (and maybe even under plain CGI??).