Spam, we've had our ups and downs, well mainly downs, but still, I'm sorry that I missed your 30th birthday. I would've sent you some "libido rapido" pills or secured your financial future by helping some Nigerian prince claim a fortune in offshore banks after a few nominal fees, but I was so busy finetuning my spamfilter and blacklists that your birthday slipped my mind.

You've come such a long way in 30 years, from that first spam mail that was sent to 600 people by Gary Thuerk, an aggressive DEC marketer sent out on May 3, 1978 with those messy headers. Now it's not just about tech-event announcements, there's also 419 scams, phishing, pump and dump stock scams and countless products being sold in mass email - 100 billion per day in 2007.

Spam is the heart of spamusement cartoons, spam opened the spam poetry institute and spam inspired Katharina Arndt to create affectionate embroidery with lines such as "Enlarge your penis" and "exquisite replica watches" in her 'Life should be full of luxuries' exhibition. No longer content with being synonymous to spiced meat or that really annoyed frustrated feeling one gets when sifting through an inbox full of junk in an effort to find legit email, you spam inspire writers and artists to soul search our high tech must have pill filled world. What would we do without you, dear Spam?

Save a shitload of time, bandwidth and money that's what we'd do. Here's your cake, spam, I hope you choke on it.