The alerts bar is getting quite annoying because you posted once on one thread, you have to be notified because you did that! I get its reason for auctions, but I cannot find out how to clear it!
What SWM and BloodDisciple said, aaand... when you go to make a single post in a thread that you don't necessarily want to keep getting updates for, click on the "More Options..." button under the reply box first. This will take you a page specifically for typing out your post, including a check box labeled "Watch this thread..." If you uncheck it, you won't recieve updates about that thread, or at least you shouldn't.
If you go into your preferences (mouseover your own name in top right hand corner) you can change the way you receive alerts, this allows you to turn off automatically 'watch' threads, and disable emails from alerts too, otherwise they build up excessively sometimes too. You can also use alert preferences to control what you get an alert for.
