Can't subtheme 'Sky'

I am trying to sub-theme 'Sky', and the steps from the 'Subtheming Quick and Dirty' (http://drupal.org/node/441088) aren't working.

I'm very new to drupal theming and realize what I don't know far outweighs what I know. I was successfully able to subtheme both 'garland' and 'zen'; however, neither is what I want for my current project, as I only need to tweak a single item in the final output... Sky is perfect except for one change.

I'm lost as to my next step. Please help!

Specifically, I've done the following:

1. Create directory sites//themes/newsky
2. Create file newsky.info

name = newsky
description = Sub-theme based on 'sky'.
core = 6.x
base theme = sky

; Regions
regions[left] = Left sidebar
regions[right] = Right sidebar
regions[contenttop] = Content top
regions[contentbottom] = Content bottom
regions[contentfooter] = Content footer

stylesheets[all][] = newsky.css

3. Create file newsky.css

body {
background-color: black;
}

4. Copy .../sky/logo.png to .../newsky

According to the subtheming directions, this should be enough. However, what I get is the following HTML output (I copied starting with the body tag, and stopping after a few lines):

  <body<span id="thmr_148" class="thmr_call">
   class="registered-user left" id="homepage"</span>

>
    <div id="wrapper">
    <div<span id="thmr_149" class="thmr_call">
   id="header" class="layout-region name-logo"</span>

>
      <div id="header-inner">
                <a href="/" title="Theming Playground" id="logo"><img src="/sites/test.com/themes/newsky/images/logo.png" alt="Theming Playground" /></a>
                        <span id="site-name"> <a href="/" title="Theming Playground">Theming Playground</a> </span>
                      </div>
    </div>
          <div id="navigation"><del class="wrap-center"><span id="thmr_147" class="thmr_call">
  <ul><span id="thmr_146" class="thmr_call">

  <li class="leaf last"><span id="thmr_145" class="thmr_call">
  <a href="/?q=content/about-us" title="About Us">About Us</a></span>

</li>
</span>

Note specifically that there are a lot of items that should be within brackets that aren't, for instance (right at the start):

  <body<span id="thmr_148" class="thmr_call">
   class="registered-user left" id="homepage"</span>

It appears also that there are extraneous '>' symbols inserted.

Anyway, I don't understand the theming engine enough to get why this would be going on. What am I missing here? What else needs to be created or done to fix this?