Hi-
... By commenting out these require_once statements the error disappears and I still see the same correct results. Wha-?
I think that's just because you haven't used any vb stuff in that code you posted, just the mysql stuff that goes directly to the database.
ETA: also, there's more than one global.php, so maybe the example script you looked at used a different one than you're including (there's on in admincp, for instance).