you can open a socket by using /sockopen command and you can use socket events for other stuff.. like;
Code:
sockopen mysocket irc.xxx.com 6667
on *:sockopen:mysocket:{
sockwrite -n mysocket USER username . . fullname
sockwrite -n mysocket nick socketsnick
}
on *:sockread:mysocket:{
sockread %mysocket
tokenize 32 %mysocket
if ($1 == PING) sockwrite -n mysocket PONG $2
}

for more help type: /help sockets