thanks VD — and I have looked at that voodoo for some time and gone crosseyed.
can you clear this up for me. when I think of mod-rewrite I think of this thing some programmers did for me that turns pages like:
xwww.gamblingforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?posid=32&SESSION=3243242
to something more readable like this
xwww.gamblingforum.com/forum/post2.html
this is not what I’m doing here…. I am actually trying to redirect to a new page that is completely different page. (not the same page rewritten)
do I still look where the link points me? 
— sorry, if I look at that for four hours and find out it doesn’t work, I’ll be sad … can you shed just a wee bit more light?