diff --git a/README.markdown b/README.markdown
index 2597578..51100fe 100644
--- a/README.markdown
+++ b/README.markdown
@@ -1,7 +1,20 @@
 This repo contains a number of experimental modifications to the version of Net::HTTP that ships with Ruby 1.9. TODOs:
 
 * <del>Porting the code to work on Ruby 1.8</del>
-* Add missing tests for features, including gzip
-* Fixing gzip when using requests that a block as an iterator
-* Adding support for getting the response as a stream, rather than having to read the entire body at once.
+* <del>Fix gzip in GET requests when using a block as iterator</del>
+* <del>Add support for gzip and deflate responses from any request</del>
+* <del>Add support for incremental gzip and deflate with chunked
+  encoding</del>
+* <del>Add support for leaving the socket open when making a request, so
+  it's possible to make requests that do not block on the body being
+  returned</del>
+* <del>Clean up tests so that it's possible to combine tests for
+  features, instead of using brittle checks for specific classes</del>
+* <del>Add support for Net::HTTP.get(path), instead of needing to pass a
+  URI or deconstruct the URL yourself</del>
+* In keepalive situations, make sure to read any remaining body from the
+  socket before initiating a new connection.
+* Add support for partial reads from the response
+* Document and clean up the semantics of when #body can be called after
+  a request
 * Other features as I think of them
diff --git a/lib/net2/http.rb b/lib/net2/http.rb
index f8fe19f..bead9d3 100644
--- a/lib/net2/http.rb
+++ b/lib/net2/http.rb
@@ -28,6 +28,17 @@
   require "net2/backports"
 end
 
+module URI
+  class Generic
+    unless URI::Generic.allocate.respond_to?(:hostname)
+      def hostname
+        v = self.host
+        /\A\[(.*)\]\z/ =~ v ? $1 : v
+      end
+    end
+  end
+end
+
 module Net2   #:nodoc:
 
   # :stopdoc:
@@ -452,12 +463,15 @@ def self.get(uri_or_host, path = nil, port = nil)
     #    print res.body
     #
     def self.get_response(uri_or_host, path = nil, port = nil, &block)
-      if path
-        host = uri_or_host
-      else
+      if uri_or_host.respond_to?(:hostname)
         host = uri_or_host.hostname
         port = uri_or_host.port
         path = uri_or_host.request_uri
+      elsif path
+        host = uri_or_host
+      else
+        uri = URI.parse(uri_or_host)
+        return get_response(uri, &block)
       end
 
       http = new(host, port || HTTP.default_port).start
diff --git a/test/http_test_base.rb b/test/http_test_base.rb
index 557145a..5906781 100644
--- a/test/http_test_base.rb
+++ b/test/http_test_base.rb
@@ -3,6 +3,12 @@ module TestNetHTTP_version_1_1_methods
   def test_s_get
     assert_equal $test_net_http_data,
         Net::HTTP.get(config('host'), '/', config('port'))
+
+    assert_equal $test_net_http_data,
+        Net::HTTP.get("http://#{config('host')}:#{config('port')}/")
+
+    assert_equal $test_net_http_data,
+        Net::HTTP.get(URI.parse("http://#{config('host')}:#{config('port')}/"))
   end
 
   def test_head