I'm so close to creating my RSS feed but I need help!!!

I've read through dozens of tutorials on creating RSS feeds for my PHP/MySQL site, each with a different approach. It's maddening that NONE of them have worked. They all have quirks. I think I'm VERY close but I'm arguing with apostrophies and semi-colons. HELP!

Here is the text I have created (password changed to protect the innocent):

<?
header("Content-type: application/rss+xml");
?>
<?  
$chan_title = "www.CraigGreenwood.com";
$chan_link = "http://www.craiggreenwood.com/journal.php/";
$chan_desc = "Keep up on the life and times of Craig Greenwood.";
?>
<?
$db_user = 'craiggr_craigwg';
$db_pass = 'changedtoprotectinnocent';
$db_host = 'localhost';
$db_database = 'craiggr_craigcom';
$db = mysql_connect($db_host, $db_user, $db_pass) or die(mysql_error());
mysql_select_db($db_database);
?>
<?
$query = "SELECT date, entry FROM tblJournal ORDER BY date DESC LIMIT 15";
$result = mysql_query($query) or die(mysql_error());
if (mysql_num_rows($result) < 1) {
    die("No records");
}
?>
<?
$items = '';
while ($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result)) {
    $item_title = $row["date"];
    $item_link = $row["http://www.CraigGreenwood.com/journal.php/"];
    $item_desc = $row["entry"];
    $items .='<item>
            <title>$item_title</title>
            <link>$item_link</link>
            <desc>$item_desc</desc>
        </item>';}
?>
<?
$content ='<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<rss version="2.0">
        <channel>
                <title>$chan_title</title>
                <link>http://www.craiggreenwood.com/journal.php/</link>
                <description>$chan_desc</description>
$items
        </channel>
</rss>';?>
<? print $content; ?>

Code (markup):

I try to validate at http://beta.feedvalidator.org/ and it DIES. The $items variable is very clear to my eyes. I can't see what I'm missing. Please help me!

Thanks
Craig

 

I got an email that this post was updated with a question asking to write the mysql table. I hope this is the right place to answer it.

The table is very simple and straightforward, designed by me.

Table name: tblJournal
ID: int(11) auto_increment
entry: longtext
Title: varchar(50)
Category: varchar(20)
date: timestamp

The table has about 117 rows so its pretty small. But I still want my RSS feed working!

Thanks for your help.
Craig