What's On YOUR Tech Bench?

I've finally carved out a bit of time today to wade through the nearly 1 month's worth of RSS feeds, emails, etc that I've been archiving away to peruse 'later'. Two weeks back on Slashdot, there was an interesting discussion on "What essentials would the /. community put on their new tech bench?". The link is here; give it a look when you have a few spare moments. You might get some good ideas for Christmas gift suggestions you can provide to friends and family members….or for how you can spend your department's equipment budget allocation before it evaporates on January 1….

My most recent equipment purchases have been pretty modest; a Radio Shack coax cable stripper and crimper set, a Cold Heat cordless soldering iron, and a Dremel set. How about you?