You could try adding a -n to your netstat arguments, so DNS lookups are not performed. Usually, a netstat operation takes a long time when there are many connections that do not resolve.
If you are interested, I wrote a gnome applet that displays network connections and other network related information. The source, a binary compiled on my system, instructions to compile your own binary, necessary files, and instructions on installing the applet is available in my download at the sourceforge project page.
https://sourceforge.net/projects/gtkapplet/
Steve A.
network connections
