[Quite right - I've fixed it. Thanks! -Dan]

Duriel, by "supermarket sizes" I suspect he meant the usual AA, AAA, C, D, and 9-volt sizes, the ones they hang on the end of every single aisle and checkout lane during the month of December, on the theory that you have to have them sitting around just in case someone gets a battery-powered toy in the gift exchange. You can get these form factors of batteries even at small groceries and convenience stores and whatnot. CR123 is more in the watch/camera battery category, something you're more likely to have to go looking for, because not all stores would necessarily carry it, and if they do it'll be in only one place in the store.

Incidentally, I'm old enough to remember when C, D, and 9-volt batteries were all *far* more common than AAA. (AA was perhaps the most common of all, though, and may still be.)

You can get the lithium CR123 and CR2 in supermarkets too, but I'd only advise that if you don't like money. As you've mentioned before, online sellers and Ebay dealers are better places to get these batteries. I'm getting five off-brand CR123's shipped from Hong Kong for about half the amount the supermarkets charge for a single name-brand one!

Off-brand 10Ah D cells are indeed one of the "weekly specials" at all-battery.com at the moment; they're $US14.71 per pair ex delivery, so three pairs will cost you $US44.13 ex delivery. Delivery within the contiguous USA looks like costing about $8 to $10, so All-Battery is a better deal per milliamp-hour (assuming everybody's telling the truth about the battery capacity) than DealExtreme's $50-delivered-to-anywhere 7Ah cells. All-Battery have various batteries-plus-a-charger package deals, too.

All-Battery charge about $US35 for delivery of six Ds to Australia, though. They also don't seem to have much in the way of name-brand cells, unless you buy a power-tool battery and take it apart :-).

(My Amazon links above aren't likely to be any use to people outside the USA, either. As a general rule, Amazon won't deliver anything but books, CDs and DVDs outside the USA - not that this has stopped them from CEASELESSLY promoting only-available-in-the-USA products and delivery options to us foreign customers. The other companies that sell stuff through Amazon may deliver outside the USA, though.)

If you want a flashlight that'll definitely be good to go even if it's been sitting in a drawer for a few years, then ordinary name-brand alkalines are a decent option. The best option in sheer battery shelf-life is non-rechargeable lithium batteries, usually the CR123 "camera batteries" that small "tactical" flashlights use.

I think the only "supermarket" battery sizes you can get in a lithium version are AA and AAA, and they have a 1.7-volt-per-cell nominal output that will cook the bulb of flashlights that expect less than 1.5 volts per cell under load. Many flashlights are fine with them but, for instance, the standard 2-AA-cell Mini Maglite will go through at least two bulbs per set of batteries if you use lithiums in it.

For rechargeable-battery shelf-life, you want either quality sealed lead-acid (very heavy, of course), or low-self-discharge NiMH cells, often sold as "pre-charged" or "ready-to-use".