Google Maps is an excellent service, one I use often, but you should never follow it blindly. Case in point: It recommended directions to me this morning that include an illegal turn onto I-65 South leaving downtown. Traffic entering I-40/I-65 from the 4th Avenue entrance ramp is prohibited from switching lanes to follow I-65 South to Brentwood because there isn’t much distance between the entrance ramp and the access point to I-65. Ahem, to be fair, I’ve made this turn anyway on a few occasions knowing I was risking a ticket, but drivers unfamiliar with the area might put themselves in an officer’s path unknowingly.

The moral of the story: Use online directions, but use them wisely. Be prepared to take an alternate route if what you find on the road doesn’t match what you saw on the net.

Comcast may have plenty of issues with its customer service, but it doesn’t mess around when it has a service outage. I noticed that my home Internet access was down around 5:30 this morning, naturally on a rare day when I needed to work at home for a few hours. A Comcast truck was already across the street assessing the situation, and by 6:00, it had company: Six more trucks (above) arrived to reestablish service. By 7:00, they had succeeded. Now if Comcast can only translate this responsiveness to its call centers. The next time you have trouble getting what you need from Comcast, try contacting ComcastCares on Twitter.