C# - Work Around For PrimativeType.TryParse?

I have become accustomed to using TryParse for attempting to parse unknown types:

Dim b As Boolean
Dim qVal As Boolean = If(Boolean.TryParse(Request.QueryString("q").Trim(), b), b, False)

or

bool b;
bool qVal = (Boolean.TryParse(Request.QueryString("q").Trim(), out b) ? b : false;

So, just curious if someone knows a better way of doing this other than using a ternary operator.

public static class PrimitiveType
{
/// This function will return a parsed value of the generic type specified.
/// </summary>

[code]....

Just pass in the type you're expecting as the generic and provide a string value to be parsed and a default value in case the string is not parsable. If you provide a class instead of a primitive type it will throw new ArgumentException("Generic type must be a valid Value Type that has a Parse method.");