help with dates and multiple loops

Hi. I'm new at dealing with PHP, but I'm familiar with many of the operations used in it. I was trying to modify the wordpress LOOP to be based on a date hierarchy instead of post ID hierarchy. In other words, if there's a couple posts today, I'd like for it to print the date and then run a couple loops to format the types of content (tags) differently. Then check yesterday, etc, until it shows 5 days with posts. In other words, something similar to blogotheque(net) website. So far what i have is shown below, but it results in showing EVERY post in the 'tag' in ascending order X 5, and with the same date printout (july 12th), even though they are posted on different dates . I've been scratching my head over this for the past couple of days, so i would appreciate another point of view. Thanks.

<?php get_header(); ?>
<div id="content">

<?php
$i=0;
$j=0;
while ($i<=4):
   $currentd  = date("d", (mktime(0, 0, 0, date("m")  , date("d")-$j, date("Y"))));
   $currentM  = date("M", (mktime(0, 0, 0, date("m")  , date("d")-$j, date("Y"))));
   $currentY  = date("Y", (mktime(0, 0, 0, date("m")  , date("d")-$j, date("Y"))));
   query_posts("year=$currentY&monthnum=$currentM&day=$currentd&order=DESC");
   if (have_posts()) : ?>

      <div class="date"><span><strong><?php the_time('F j, Y'); ?></strong></span></div>

<?php query_posts("year=$current_year&monthnum=$current_month&day=current_day&order=ASC&tag=interview");
      if ( have_posts() ) :
         while ( have_posts() ) : the_post();
            update_post_caches($posts); ?>

         <!-- formatting goes here -->

         <?php endwhile;
      query_posts("year=$current_year&monthnum=$current_month&day=current_day&order=ASC&tag=articles");
      if ( have_posts() ) :
         while ( have_posts() ) : the_post();
            update_post_caches($posts); ?>

         <!-- formatting goes here -->

         <?php endwhile;
         $i++;
         $j++;
      else:
         $j++;
      endif;
      wp_reset_query();
   else:
      $j++
   endif;
endwhile; ?>
<!-- Prev/Next page navigation -->
<div class="page-nav">
   <div class="nav-previous"><?php previous_posts_link('Previous Page') ?></div>
   <div class="nav-next"><?php next_posts_link('Next Page') ?></div>
</div>
</div>

<?php get_sidebar(); ?>
<?php get_footer(); ?>

Code (markup):

P.S. I also tried setting up the date with the code below, but it results in the same. I also tried echoing the value of the variables, and "i" increments normally, while "j" goes returns ( 1, 3, 6, 26, 31) for each run through the loop. Please help.

$currentd = date('d',strtotime("-$j day"));
$currentM = date('M',strtotime("-$j day"));
$currentY = date('Y',strtotime("-$j day"));

Code (markup):