[eluser]adityamenon[/eluser]
vitoco, please kick me on my backside. hard enough that I land in the arctic circle.
THANKS! I can't believe I wasted so many people's time with this! It was THIS simple! I'm SO sorry everybody! How could I be blind to it! I never used so many exclamation marks in one sentence!
Thanks again, it's working now. Even without writing $this->load->database()
Actually, I still think CI needs to eat some of this blame >

How can it work so well with such a great blunder... it just limped with the half-assed code I gave it, instead of letting me know I amputated the wrong limb.
Pagination create_links() is also creating links, but pagination is not working... all rows are being shown on the same page. But I'll probably figure that out myself.
Thanks a lot people! This is something new to look out for every time I get an error from now...