> The good thing is that you are patient. :-)
>
> Anyways, did you check out nc(1) and look for the -e switch? Is
> it available for you?

No, it's not :(
The only thing that I can do is

(sleep 10
echo USER blah
sleep 5
echo PASS blahblah) | nc -vv somehost 21

But it's kind of dumb :(