psionic stress radiation

Shucks. My DVD player froze and died yesterday.
I was feeling needy and bruised and I thought an episode or two of Buffy would slay some of my personal demons.

Alas, no. My dour mood actually slew my disk player.
That happens a lot.

When I'm in a crap mood, my car, my appliances, my computer, and my t.v. (and accessories) all respond sympathetically.

When I was in my early twenties, and constantly, profoundly depressed, I would drive home late at night after work, and streetlights would never fail to respond to my discontent by winking out as I passed beneath.

One by one.

Some well-read acquaintance once told me that this was called the "Thor's Hammer effect". Ultimately, he proved to be joking, and I guess he wondered if I wasn't giving too much ground to my obvious persecution anxiety. He offered an instance where he had been left in the dark under the same circumstance.

I countered this with rehearsals of all my recent experiences. By the time I had related the story of the River Road Blackout (ten streetlamps summarily auto-extinguished as I passed beneath each of them in turn) he was speechless -- and to my mind, somewhat affrighted.

I like complicated machinery.
I am a fan of and respectful towards complicated machinery.

So why shouldn't it behave in kind? If it is intelligent enough to know what I'm feeling, then surely it can deduce that its continuing functionality is better served by making me happy, as opposed to breaking the fuck down...