I'm going to buy some random IC for fun projects.. any suggestion?

I'd like to buy a few IC, the most useful and common ones, so that they might inspire me in some fun projects =)

I'm a newbe of course, in my stock I have a few 555, some 358 and 311 and a 4049 (and the voltage regulator ones ) ...
Now, any idea of something fun and cheap? I thought some counters and digital stuff maybe, something to control LCD maybe... any idea? Remember, cheap and fun =)

thanks!
Bye