Ok, one major problem solved, and after much investigating I was able to figure out why (I just wish you would have mentioned that I was blitting in relation to the screen, when I should have been blitting in relation to the surface I was blitting to ;) ). menu items are showing up. But the transparency issue doesn't seem to be solved at all. Adjusting alpha seems to adjust brightness, not transparency (i.e. smaller number make it closer to black, higher values make it closer to the specified color).