For something quirky i use python with BeautifulSoup. Or lately node.js with phantom.js and server side jQuery. And shameless plug - for anything more trivial

For something quirky i use python with BeautifulSoup. Or lately node.js with phantom.js and server side jQuery. And shameless plug - for anything more trivial and on-demand or websites that have good structure (which is the most of them) I use http://redpluck.com http://redpluck.com. It's easy and fast to setup, supports scraping behind login walls and powerful deep scraping.