LAS VEGAS, Nevada — Technology is not always our friend, and all too often the march of progress resembles the drunkard’s stumble that Tom Waits famously described in “Nighthawk Postcards (From Easy Street)” as “using parking meters as walking sticks.”

For example, we now enjoy “Italian” bikes wearing Asian components, “high-speed Internet” that is anything but, and “smart” phones that no longer need humans to place calls, choose music or launch apps.

The Italian-Asian hybrid you already know about. The Internet of the Living Dead was at the Fairfield, where I spent much of last night pushing one pixel at a time through a virtual soda straw.

And the “smart” phone? It was in one of the cargo pockets in my shorts when it decided Interbike was boring and needed a fresh soundtrack. Thus throughout the day my iPhone 3GS would randomly set Tom Waits, Gladys Knight and the Pips or Elvis Costello to singing, Ace Ventura-like, out of my butt, generally while I was trying to conduct a little business.

When that proved so 15 minutes ago it started ringing up people in my contacts list and launching apps at random. What’s next — texting my editors to ask them whether they’re wearing crotchless panties? Some of them probably are, and then where the hell will I be?

Oh, yeah — I’ll be on the road, that’s where. Show’s over, and I’m Colorado bound.