builing a little stockpile of parts at home - which ones?

[garcho]

Flimsy leads are OK if you are purchasing resistors for a specific project or PCB, but if you're stocking up on them and if you plan on breadboarding - which I find to be both the most important and funnest part of the process - you'll want the nice 1/4W thick leads. When the flimsy ones bend they can cause shorts you might not notice at first because you don't even feel yourself bending them, and can break off easily inside the breadboard hole, rendering it screwy forever. These are ideal.