Blowfish because it's fun. No other reason. 

Key as in the same key you entered. You are not creating a key/password pair, you are manually entering a key in and you're entering it in twice. once for decrypting and once for encrypting. 

I would handle decrypting separately. If you script/write something that handle's encrypted files that would be nice. So far I've just been piping them into things.

I hope that answers your questions. Mail me if it doesn't. pantsbutt @ @ g mail . com

THANKS FOR LISTENING!!!!!!