"Search Engines Are Our Friends"
I'm convinced that if most people had time, patience, and knowledge of search engines, they would have more respect for the World Wide Web and the plethora (check out Dictionary.com on the English page for that one) of information available to them. The only one of these three elements that I am able to provide is knowledge of search engines; I know I'm definitely not the expert here, but I'll pass along what I've learned so far.
Ask.com - Let Jeeves, the Internet butler, help you find what you're looking for. A great engine for vague searches, or if you prefer searching in question form.
Altavista.com - My personal favorite. Definitely try here for image searches or if you have a pretty good idea of what you're looking for. DON'T go here if you want a good place to browse through a directory!
Yahoo.com - A wonderful place for directory browsing, comparison shopping, and various and sundry other search-type things. :-)
Dogpile.com - An ideal meta engine for academic or information-based searching.
eBay.com - I guess this isn't really a "search engine," but I love to browse through the items for fun, decently-priced stuff. Just be really careful - caveat emptor!