...somehow we got this Amethyst blog raked and ready after ten days of twiddling. My installation kept conking out when it reached the database descriptors. After a dozen tries I put it aside for a few days.
My friend in Oslo, Geir, suggested it might a simple problem of syntax--the database.yml file might have a tab instead of spaces. From what I read around the web, that's a common problem. Alas, it wasn't that either.
It turns out that the database settings look for a "localhost" by default. Everyone expects you to test your application on your desktop before you move it to your server. Ha ha, not me. I just plunk it on the server and fire up. Eventually I found where to add the "host" line in the database.yml, but it took some hunting.
The blog app itself is a download from
http://www.hulihanapplications.com/
and while I don't want to sound ungrateful, I find this incredibly ugly. It's like user-interface design from the Carter Administration. A portent of the next few years, perhaps?
Hulihan promises "customizable themes (coming soon)" but that was many months ago.

