Will we ever learn? We asked for a drink of water and wound up getting hit in the face with a firehose. See, first we complained that there were no TV commercials for Apple's slick new Power Mac G4 Cube. Then, two weeks later, apparently the Powers That Be heard our gripe and granted our wish: thirty seconds of music by Hendrix, voice by Rollins, and brain-in-a-box by Apple Computer-- an oasis of cool in a desert of summer reruns. All was well in Cubeville.

After that first surprise sighting, every time we heard "Purple Haze" start blasting from the set, our ears would perk up, our eyes would brighten, and we'd start salivating like Pavlov's dogs-- which is all well and good, except frankly, we're starting to run out of spit. Is it just us, or is the Cube commercial getting a lot of airplay? It seems to pop up with almost alarming regularity whenever we've got the TV on (which is, as regular viewers know, whenever we're awake). That might indicate that Apple's marketing aim is dead-on accurate, since we at AtAT are obviously potential Cube customers and we're seeing ads for the thing in the middle of every show we watch. It also might mean that Apple's blowing a huge wad of cash to show the commercial everywhere it can, shotgun-style. Either way, we're getting a whole lot of Cube.

Now, we're not sick of it yet-- between Rollins, Hendrix, and the Cube itself, we'd be more likely to get tired of breathing-- but we do have to wonder whether Apple's going to show the second Cube commercial for variety's sake. As many viewers noted, the two commercials to which we referred last Friday are, in fact, one and the same. But there were two distinct Cube ads unveiled at the Apple Expo, one of which is still apparently being kept off the air here in the U.S. And while the first ad is now available in QuickTime format from Apple's ads page, the mysterious "missing" commercial is missing from the 'net, too.

Or is it? Faithful viewer David Triska informed us that while Apple decided not to go the live webcast route with last week's Stevenote, the company has deigned to post a streaming-on-demand QuickTime version after the fact. And he was even kind enough to tell us that the two Cube commercials start approximately thirty-six minutes and twenty-two seconds into the broadcast, so we figured we'd get the skinny on this enigmatic "second Cube ad" once and for all. High-energy techno music plays in the background as a Cube spins like an excited subatomic particle; an unidentified voice (Katie, AtAT's resident fact-checker and Goddess of Minutiae, hasn't had a chance to hear it yet) intones, "According to quantum theory, tremendous energy can be compressed into a tiny packet. A tiny packet, indeed. Presenting: a supercomputer in an eight-inch cube."

Hey, it got plenty of applause, so hopefully Apple's just keeping it on the shelf temporarily and we'll see it on the air soon. In the meantime, you can only experience it through the magic of streaming QuickTime, and we suggest that you do so. While you're at it, try to take the time to catch the whole event, because it's rather enlightening. In fact, we've got to admit-- the Key Lime iBook looks a lot more attractive in the Stevenote footage than it does on Apple's iBook page, and we're really starting to understand its appeal. (That doesn't mean we're buying one, though.)