downloading php pages ?

Hello fellow nginx users. I'm setting up my server to use nginx / php-fpm and I seem to have hit a brick wall. html pages are served correctly to the browser but requests for php pages prompt for download of the file.
default index.html => home.idea-team.org
test html page => home.idea-team.org/test.html
test php page (same page as above but with php extension) => home.idea-team.org/test.php
phpinfo page => home.idea-team.org/phpinfo.php

please check it out if you have a minute, hopefully it's something silly I overlooked

other info:
php 5.3.5
suhosin patch 0.9.10
suhosin 0.9.32.1
with the following compile configuration
./configure --with-config-file-path=/usr/local/lib/php --with-curl --enable-exif --with-gd --with-jpeg-dir --with-png-dir --with-zlib --with-xpm-dir --with-freetype-dir --with-t1lib --with-mcrypt --with-mhash --with-mysql=mysqlnd --with-mysqli=mysqlnd --with-pdo-mysql=mysqlnd --with-openssl --enable-sysvmsg --enable-wddx --with-xsl --enable-zip --with-bz2 --enable-bcmath --enable-calendar --enable-ftp --enable-mbstring --enable-soap --enable-sockets --enable-sqlite-utf8 --with-gettext --enable-shmop --with-xmlrpc --enable-dba --enable-sysvsem --enable-sysvshm --enable-fpm --with-fpm-user=www-data --with-fpm-group=www-data
and using the default php.ini

nginx 0.9.3
with the following compile configuration
sudo ./configure --user=www-data --group=www-data --with-http_ssl_module --with-http_realip_module --with-http_sub_module --with-http_dav_module --with-http_flv_module --with-http_gzip_static_module --with-http_secure_link_module --with-http_stub_status_module --with-http_gzip_static_module --with-rtsig_module --http-client-body-temp-path=/var/cache/nginx/client_body_temp --http-proxy-temp-path=/var/cache/nginx/proxy_temp --http-fastcgi-temp-path=/var/cache/nginx/fastcgi_temp --without-mail_pop3_module --without-mail_imap_module --without-mail_smtp_module --add-module=/home/smiro/nginx/nginx-upload-progress-module --sbin-path=/usr/sbin/nginx --conf-path=/etc/nginx/nginx.conf
and using perusio's drupal optimized nginx.conf from => https://github.com/perusio/drupal-with-nginx

nginx -t returns no errors and nothing significant in the logs...

searching google for crazy stuff like "i'm downloading php pages" mentioned a possible problem with mime types?

thank you for taking a look at my problem. i look forward to running a solid nginx server!

-miro