just read thru the
gmail tips and i got to the blackbelt section before i saw something i didnt know about:
Filter your email with personalized email addresses.
You actually get more address variations than just "yourusername@gmail.com" all of which get delivered to you. You can put a plus ("+") sign and any combination of words or numbers after your name like changing hikingfan@gmail.com to hikingfan+mailinglists@gmail.com or hikingfan+junk@gmail.com. Then you can easily add a filter to label and/or archive messages sent to the variations.