so, my lovely little php problem that i spent way too long beating my head against yesterday? wasn't a php problem after all. httpd needed kicking. and heck, i didn't even figure that out... i finally, in desperation, rebooted the box. httpd didn't restart on boot, so i fixed what was stopping it, and poof, everything worked. go figure.

some days i think i need to go back to flinging pizzas...