Brace yourself for another round of rumors about acquisitions, partnerships, and funding possibilities.  Steve Ballmer and Dick Costolo supposedly met for breakfast this week, and it’s a rare person who will imagine all they discussed was the fat content of donuts.

To be fair: no one’s claimed that they observed the CEOs of Microsoft and Twitter signing a single document or even talking shop.  Plus, the source of the rumor hasn’t been cited.

Victoria Barret just wrote, "This just heard: Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer had breakfast this week in San Francisco with Twitter’s Dick Costolo, who recently took over the top dog spot from co-founder Evan Williams."

Still, there’s reason to believe something significant could have happened.  Bing announced a search deal with Twitter before Google, after all, and yesterday, one Microsoft exec had no problem admitting that his company once tried to buy Facebook.

It’s a simple fact that Microsoft isn’t short on cash, either.

We’ll see what happens.  A colleague did spot the fail whale earlier today, so perhaps Twitter could use some of Microsoft’s technical expertise.