In the weeks leading up to an Apple event it’s always the same for me. At first I’m intrigued by the rumors that start flowing, then a week later I’m utterly sick of them, but then a week after that – right before the actual event – I catch a fever that can only be cured by one thing: more Mac rumor.

Tomorrow is Apple’s event, which we’ll just call an iMac event since at this point it would be one of the biggest disappointments in Apple event history if Apple failed to deliver a new iMac given just how much buzz there is around the Internet for a device no one has ever seen (the supposed new iteration that is). Already the proud owner of an iMac, I am much more intrigued by one of the newer rumors – one that I think could be a solid one (which is to say has PERHAPS a better than 50% chance of actually happening): a .Mac upgrade.

I don’t use .Mac for the simple reason that in its current state I find it pretty pointless. Who in their right mind would pay that much for a half dozen or so services that you can get for free numerous other places on the Internet. Sure it has some of the easy-to-use Apple charm, but is that worth $99 a year? No.

What I would love to see is what I found to be one of the best rumors surrounding WWDC: a Apple/Google partnership for .Mac. In my perfect world not only would this service be free, but Google would be providing all of their services as well as tens of gigabytes of online storage to each user who signs up. I don’t think I’m being too ridiculous here. If I were I would have said unlimited storage. A guy can dream right?

We know the Google/Apple relationship is there (Google CEO Eric Schmidt sits on Apple’s Board of Directors), we know Apple’s desire to improve .Mac is there (Steve Jobs told Walt Mossberg at the D Conference that we should .Mac to make up for lost time very soon), and we know that Google has a lot of storage space just sitting around collecting dust (okay maybe an exaggeration, but competitor Yahoo offers UNLIMITED email storage now while Google is still stuck at 2.8 gigs…and Yahoo Mail has millions of more users than Gmail!).

.Mac is scheduled for an outage tomorrow coincidentally (or not so much) during the Apple event. When it comes back online look for some major upgrades – and hopefully that Google logo. If that happens, Apple has my word that I’ll be signing up.