yeah. still doesn't work.
There's a second variable option that I can put in to bring up an image of my choosing in place of any image hotlinked. I can get that to work, so that someone on an outside URL sees that image.
But I can't get it so that people on my own site can see the images on it. When I put the htaccess file in, not only does it disable hotlinking but it also disables all of the images within whatever folder i put it in! hehe