Set up Thunderbird to handle my Gmail account as well as the ISP-provided POP3 account. Works great and, what's more, allows me to sign and/or encrypt outgoing messages with Thunderbird's Enigmail extension which gives Thunderbird OpenPGP support.
Also set up the BDComics RSS feed (Tools > Account Settings..., then Add Account...), making it a hell of a lot easier to navigate all the great comics links put up there.