> I was stuck on trying to figure out how to
> create a URL pattern that would match anything BUT a particular
> pattern.

You can use the negative lookahead for that. Here's part of our pound.cfg that redirects based on the user agent (known scrapers and spam bots), except for certain urls:

Service "scrapers"
    URL "^/(?!access_restricted\.htm)"
    URL "^/(?!contact\.pl)"
    URL "^/(?!img/)"
    URL "^/(?!.+\.css)"
    URL "^/(?!.+\.js)"
    HeadRequire "User-Agent:.*(Microsoft URL Control|Microsoft Office|Wget|curl|AdobeAIR|Apache|Brutus|ColdFusion|DataCha0s|DTS Agent|BackStreet Browser|Firebat|Web Downloader|Offline Explorer|Internet-exprorer|Indy Library|Gigamega|compatible ; MSIE|EmailCollector|LiteFinder|Missigua|MJ12bot|Nutch|OCP HRS|Jenaie|libwww|HistoryHound|HttpClient|HTTrack|HTTP Fetcher|Snoopy|WebCopier|XMLHTTP)"
    Redirect "http://XXXXXXXX/access_restricted.htm"
End

Personally, what I really wish pound config supported is an OR flag for URLs (Apache mod_rewrite style). So instead of writing something like:

URL "^/(blah-one|blah-two|blah-three|foo-\n+|.........)\.pl"

I could write a more readable, and in turn less prone to mis-configuration issues once you get a few dozens of URLs in the list, way:

URL "^/blah-one\.pl" [OR]

URL "^/blah-two\.pl" [OR]

URL "^/blah-three\.pl" [OR]

...........

Or is there already a way to do just that that I'm not aware of?

-Mike