[jackti]

:nervous: lol, you're absolutely right about the case in the middle. I'm not really sure what is called in what order, but I'm thinking that vb must blank some variables before it starts phpinclude because otherwise $_GET would not be blank , right?...

even if it explains why $brand_new_var turns out blank, it doesn't explain why I also get an empty $_GET/$_REQUEST Array in my header ?

Thats really the problem, making it into another variable name would just be a way to get around it (if it actually would have worked)..

..also when I try including global.php from my header.php and try loading a page I get a bunch of database errors and the page does not load at all, but I shouldn't need to do that anyway on pages that have nothing to do with vb.