It's off, it's on, it's off again, it's on again-- the official Apple webcast of the upcoming Macworld Tokyo Stevenote has been flip-flopped so many times, we're starting to think that Apple is sending a secret message to Steve's home planet in really slow Morse code. First Apple was making those same noises we all remember from past years, about how a live Tokyo webcast would be "cost-prohibitive." (In other words, forget about it.) But then last week, some enterprising web-combers fired up their virtual metal detectors and struck pay dirt: an unlinked, unpublicized page on Apple's own site with information about a QuickTime Streaming webcast of Steve's imminent speaking gig. That, of course, raised the hopes of those of us who can't go jetting off to Japan every time some mercurial guy in a turtleneck needs to tells us "one more thing." Unfortunately, that hope was short-lived, because soon after word got out about the hidden page, the mothership yanked it from its servers so quickly we swear we heard a pop when Apple broke the sound barrier.

But guess what? As faithful viewer David Triska notes, it's baaa-aack, and this time it looks like it might be here to stay. At least, we hope it's here to stay, though there's still no link to the page on Apple's "QuickTime Hot Picks" list-- so maybe it'll vanish again when Apple starts the third letter in its interstellar Morse transmission. In any case, keep your fingers crossed and maybe the webcast will still be officially "on" during the actual event itself. We'll know soon enough, since Steve's due to take the stage at 10 AM Tokyo time on Thursday the 22nd (which translates to 8PM EST tomorrow night, we think).

Oops-- actually, never mind. We just took a closer look at Apple's keynote webcast page to verify the broadcast time, and noticed that none is given. That's when the important phrase "video-on-demand archive" finally sunk in. So you can apparently forget about an Apple-served live Stevenote webcast; instead we're going to have to wait until Steve's done talking and Apple's A/V elves encode the tapes and post the files to apple.com. So much for instant gratification. Bummer. We suppose it's just as well, though; we were having enough trouble trying to decide between reruns of "That '70s Show" and "Ed" without having a live Stevenote in there interfering with our strict TV-watching regimen.