What the hell is with those TV commercials for Ask.com? Does anyone actually believe that Ask.com is better, faster, or more reliable than Google (or A9 or Yahoo or MSN or whatever) just because the homely guy with the accent says so?

I saw one last night where the guy was using a bear attack as an important search. He then suggested something like, "If you're actually being attacked by a bear, you probably shouldn't be using any search engine, but if you did Ask.com would give you the best results."

I disagree. Well, I disagree with the who has the best search. I agree completely with not using a search engine while being attacked by a bear.

Search Google for bear attack. Result #2: Survive a bear attack.

Search Ask for bear attack. Result #4: Bear attack survival.
 

Ok, so who really gives a rat's ass? The real reason I'm annoyed is because I used to be active on the old ask.com (I mean the domain, not the company). Ask.com used to be a user-operated advice site. If you had a question on anything, from agriculture to zoology, they would have a forum and a pile of friendly volunteer experts for it. For a while I was involved enough that I climbed to the highest rated expert spot in the PC Tech Support category. I was even getting paid for my efforts.

Then the domain sold. Fucking Michael Douglas. 'sokay, I was pretty bored with it anyway. But still, it bums me out that it's gone. It's now a mediocre search engine with a bad haired spokesman.