My wife kicked my ass...

...at gift giving.

For our 5 year anniversary (yay us!) Anne got me a brand, spanking new 30 gig video iPod. I got her a refurbished 20 gig click wheel iPod. And not even a color one.

This goes far beyond just normal gift disparity. Sure, there are times when you do a gift exchange and one gift may seem like a better gift than another. But that's just perception. Apples and oranges, so to speak. But here we have a gift that is inherently superior to the other. It's apples and apples. And one of those apples is shinier and tastier than the other one.

And, to add insult to injury, my gift to her didn't even work.

"Here, darling, I got you the crappier version of your gift to me and then I kicked it around a bit and poured diet coke on it for good measure."

I had to take it back to the Apple store and wait for 2 1/2 hours to exchange it. That's karma at work, right there.

Still, all in all, it was a nice anniversary. Drove up to Napa for the day, had a nice lunch and some fun window shopping. Could have been worse. She could have gotten me the 60 gig one (thereby increasing the gift disparity, for those of you who don't get it).