diff --git a/core/irc.py b/core/irc.py
index ff44327..fbf4aac 100644
--- a/core/irc.py
+++ b/core/irc.py
@@ -66,7 +66,9 @@ class crlf_tcp(object):
         while True:
             try:
                 data = self.recv_from_socket(4096)
-                self.ibuffer += data
+                print(type(self.ibuffer))
+                print(type(data))
+                self.ibuffer += (data.decode('utf-8'))
                 if data:
                     last_timestamp = time.time()
                 else:
@@ -88,9 +90,11 @@ class crlf_tcp(object):
         while True:
             line = self.oqueue.get().splitlines()[0][:500]
             print(">>> %r" % line)
-            self.obuffer += line.encode('utf-8', 'replace') + '\r\n'
-            while self.obuffer:
-                sent = self.socket.send(self.obuffer)
+
+            self.obuffer += (line + '\r\n')
+
+            while len(self.obuffer) > 0:
+                sent = self.socket.send(self.obuffer.encode('utf-8', 'replace'))
                 self.obuffer = self.obuffer[sent:]
 
 
diff --git a/core/main.py b/core/main.py
index 460f3a7..d6c42ce 100644
--- a/core/main.py
+++ b/core/main.py
@@ -1,6 +1,7 @@
 import fuckit
 import _thread
 import traceback
+import queue
 
 
 _thread.stack_size(1024 * 512)  # reduce vm size
@@ -99,7 +100,7 @@ class Handler(object):
 
     def __init__(self, func):
         self.func = func
-        self.input_queue = Queue.Queue()
+        self.input_queue = queue.Queue()
         _thread.start_new_thread(self.start, ())
 
     def start(self):
diff --git a/plugins/util/urlnorm.py b/plugins/util/urlnorm.py
index 05187c5..40af7bd 100644
--- a/plugins/util/urlnorm.py
+++ b/plugins/util/urlnorm.py
@@ -73,7 +73,7 @@ def normalize(url):
     # Always use uppercase A-through-F characters when percent-encoding.
     # All portions of the URI must be utf-8 encoded NFC from Unicode strings
     def clean(string):
-        string = str(unquote(string), 'utf-8', 'replace')
+        string = b""+(unquote(string)).decode('utf-8', 'replace')
         return unicodedata.normalize('NFC', string).encode('utf-8')
     path = quote(clean(path), "~:/?#[]@!$&'()*+,;=")
     fragment = quote(clean(fragment), "~")