you can do a different take by making it into a socket script. to use it you ask in the form of a question.

<~napa182> 8ball will i ever find my car keys?
<~Sick0> [The magic 8ball says:] Outlook good.

on $*:text:/^(8ball\s(.+)\?)$/S:#:{ 
  if (!%ball8flood) { 
    set -u3 %ball8flood $nick 
    if ($sock(8ball)) .sockclose 8ball 
    sockopen 8ball pages.cs.wisc.edu 80 
    sockmark 8ball # 14[04The magic 8ball says:14]
  }
}
on *:sockopen:8ball: {
  sockwrite -nt $sockname GET /~craft/8ball.cgi HTTP/1.1 
  sockwrite -nt $sockname Host: $+(pages.cs.wisc.edu,$str($crlf,2)) 
}
on *:sockread:8ball: {
  var %8ball | sockread %8ball
  if ($regex(%8ball,/<h4>(.+)<\/h4>/)) { msg $sock(8ball).mark $regml(1) | sockclose 8ball }
}

just a different take