Wasabi Icecream, Chocolate creations, and brief update

Hiya! Just a quick post because I haven't put up anything today, and it just feels like ages since I posted. Even though my DIA fukubukuro reveal was just yesterday morning wtf .-.

So yesterday I went to the beach for a picnic and to catch up with some friends from uni~

I stayed under the beach umbrella almost the entire time between 12 and 4pm, but I still ended up with pretty clear tanlines ==
Should have just gone in a bikini and tanned properly. :/

Group photo at the Long Bay scenic photo frame ^-^

Selfie with the chocolates I've recently been addicted to making

So yeah, because my nails don't require maintenance that often (every two/three weeks?) I've been a little short on things to do. Because my new supplies haven't arrived from China yet, I can't start deco-ing so I've been making desserts!

More choccies~ so much fun making them! ^-^ (photo from my mom's wechat, very blurry sorry)

Meringue cups with wasabi vanilla icecream and dark chocolate.

Surprisingly the meringue dessert turned out better than I expected. Though, in saying that... perhaps wasabi icecream on soy waffles, or caramel pieces in wasabi icecream could work better? So many possible ways to use wasabi icecream!

As you can see I'm quite insistent on eating wasabi icecream right now. I have 3 more icecream flavours, and an iceblock flavour at home but I still went out to buy vanilla icecream for making wasabi vanilla icecream wtf.

Update

I will be picking up Tenshi-neechan on Saturday, so even if I don't post about Japan Day tomorrow (I am hoping I will!!), clothes from China and gifts from Japan will be arriving! I will have soooo much to review omg. Excited!!!

But yes, upcoming posts are Japan Day, Farmers A/W launch (when their promo vid comes out), Meta fukubukuro unboxing, haul review :)

So happy there's all this content prepared for the start of the uni semester! Hoping I can be consistent with the blogging for the entire year!

=^.^=

D.I.A Fukubukuro 2014 (福袋) Unboxing [Confetti]

OK so I’m posting this up ahead of the Farmers Autumn/Winter Launch and Japan Day because my friend サ-ラ who helped me purchase this fukubukuro is posting her unboxing soon too, and I have some of the stuff from her lucky bag xD

edit: サ-ラ's fukubukuro reveal is now on her blog here! She got a really good bag too ~ *happy happy*

I only look at fashion LPs, because Japanese brand clothes are ridiculously expensive and generally not worth their price when they’re not on sale. Yes I said it ok; brand lovers, don’t hate – you know it’s the truth.

Because D.I.A doesn’t have a web store, I haven’t really seen their items in detail before. As it is, many D.I.A items turn out to be average quality, and in general I would say that their more casual clothing are certainly not worth their regular price. However, when you get 15 items in a LP, the individual cost of each item makes it virtually impossible to get a ‘bad value’.

D.I.A also has one of the most ‘good value’ LPs of the gyaru brands. Year after year, Ank Rouge has disappointed me with their average-as-plain-icecream LPs (2014 suitcase here and 2014 carry here). I don’t know the owner of those two blogs btw, just linked the first two I found with photos for Ank Rouge 2014 LP on google lol.

SO my LP! The title of this post is a little misleading because it didn’t come in a box, BUT most LPs are sent by shipping services in boxes so for searchability, I wrote unboxing k

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Comment captchas - I'm getting sick of them.

So a lot of people on blogger seem to have this captcha thing enabled.

I understand that perhaps there is a lot of spam and bots and whatnot, and i just realised that I had mine enabled too (awks). It's turned off now!

My point is, when you check all your blog feed and read like 5~10 posts at a time, a ~10ish number captcha for every comment you make is mf-ing annoying!

It's gotten to the point where sometimes I really cbf commenting. But I want the blogger to keep writing so I comment anyway. So far I haven't lazied out on commenting at all *pats self on back*

I remember someone (who? don't remember anymore) was complaining that they don't get feedback so they don't want to blog anymore. That was a little different though, I remember checking their blog and they never reply to comments. Why should you expect people to leave comments if you don't ever reply hm? But yeah, because of that person's rant, I try my best to always comment!

Anyway, I hope people can loosen up on the captchas. It's default setting, so perhaps authors don't realise it (like myself), but I am seriously so thankful to bloggers that disabled the captchas. VIRTUAL HUGZ TO EVERYONE WHO DOESN'T USE GOOGLE'S CAPTCHA ❤

edit: I have now switched over to disqus so I don't think I have the captchas anymore? If I do and its really long please tell me so I can edit/remove it!
k rant over. Bai :)

=^.^=

Auckland Chinese Lantern Festival and presents from Malaysia! [Confetti]

Hiya!

It’s been a while since I posted, sorry for the brief hiatus!

I’ve taken so many photos these two weeks, but being the instagram addict that I am, every photo has to be filtered yadi-yadah. Long story short, I simply didn’t have time to prepare all the photos for posting recently ><

Is it better to have few, but good quality, photos…or to have many, but average quality photos???
I swear that is a blogger’s biggest dilemma :’( #firstworldproblems

Anyway, last weekend we had the annual Auckland Chinese Lantern Festival! As usual, the festivities spanned from Friday till Sunday – with fireworks on Sunday evening.

I originally planned to go on Sunday so that I could stay and watch the fireworks, but I had to leave early. AND THIS YEAR THE FIREWORKS FLEW OFF THE SKY TOWER TOO!! So unfortunate T_T

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AT Transport / Transdev FAIL [rant]

Ok so I live in the north quarters of Auckland, where we mostly have buses instead of trains because all the houses are super spread out and hilly, the country is not wide enough, and long story short- trains/metro would be impossible.

However over this summer, I have been working at a place in central/bordering south of Auckland, which is really close to one of the train stations. Because it's so far away from home, I moved closer to work for two months. But now that I only do a few days here and there, I decided to move home and just do the long commute from home which includes a trip on the bus, and then transfer to train.

Auckland's train system is really simple. Like, REALLY simple. There's only 4 lines, and 5 platforms in the main station (Britomart) downtown CBD. Because I rarely take the train (read: never), I don't know the stations, especially the really end-stop ones which is what is displayed on the train and platforms to indicate direction.

The train I need to take the is the red Southern line that ends at Pukekohe. My stop is Ellerslie (circled pink), and there are 2 trains that go down this line past my stop.

So I get to Britomart, and like yesterday, I ask the concierge which train to take because there isn't a single train map like above until you've entered the gate and walked halfway down a platform. He tells me to take the train leaving really soon heading to Swanson, so OK I run for it and manage to catch the train.

Turns out Swanson is way out west. There isn't a single stop along the way to Swanson that sounds REMOTELY like 'Ellerslie', but I forgive the guy cause you know, everyone has their off days and it was 8am. Thankfully, the train stops at Newmarket which is on the way to Ellerslie anyway. No big harm done, just some time lost.

So I get off at Newmarket, and because I had been told the wrong train once this morning, I was a bit cautious and wanted to find the train myself. But NO. Turns out there isn't a single map like the above around Newmarket Station. All they had were these posters that had West line, South Line, East Line, and stuff which didn't list any of the Stations. AND IT WASN'T JUST ONE OF THOSE POSTERS EITHER. COULDN'T THEY PUT UP SOME USEFUL MAPS TOO!?

At a loss for solutions, I went and asked the concierge at Newmarket station which train I should take. He tells me that a train is leaving so I run for it (again), not even looking at what train it is because there's no time to lose. I get on the train and what do you know, its a train BACK TO BRITOMART. Like, I am so un-amused at this point I was just RAGING inside. When I get back to Britomart, thankfully there are maps along the station platforms so I found a map and managed to get to work.

Consequences:
- huge amount of stress
- half an hour late for work (when I was originally due to be 10 minutes early)
- migraine from the rage
- wasted 30~45 minutes on the trains, and an hour typing a long af complaint and this post.

Transdev and Auckland Transport, you are even worse in my books than you were before. If that's even possible.


On the other hand, the guy working on the train on my final trip to work was super kind and nice. Though, it could be because I was looking so angry he was scared I would snap.



=^.^=

Upcoming Posts

I have so many photos for posts I need to edit!!

Because i took most of them at night, the lighting is gross af. Hence the lack of update for like, close to a week ;w;

These posts will be going up soon (probably on Confetti):

- D.I.A fukubukuro opening (EEEEEEEEP!!!!!!)

- Lantern Festival, and presents from Malaysia (kawaii goodies && inspo a-plenty ;w;)

- Lens reviews - my large brown, and grey lenses for the year. If I can ever be bothered, I will review my casual brown lenses too but I just feel so meh about lenses < 14.5mm ~.~

Alright, just felt obligated to fill the blog with a little update since I haven't been on in a while haha.

Even my instagram has been really quiet! FML. Dead phone = all good quality photos but the long process to get it on instagram is just a b****. INSTAGRAM PLEASE JUST LET PEOPLE UPLOAD ON THE BROWSER TOO!!! QAQ

=^.^=

To C,

  I haven't seen you in many years. I think our last conversation was in Massey's courtyard where you were taking a smoke break, back in 2010. I always thought you smelled too strongly of smoke. Yep, you were the smoky mister.

We've actually known each other for quite a number of years haven't we? Since back in the days my mother was still studying (and you too I think?). You were one of those 3 tall men I always hear about- L, J, and you. And of course, plump ol' B. Did you know? He's actually quite the handyman, and also a life-hacks expert!

I heard about your admittance to hospital through the staff email. Even though you had left the department, everyone still remembers you. I hope the cards and wishes that were sent from us made your time in bed a little more comfortable- even if for the few minutes you read them. When I heard about your circumstances, I made a stab at the reason. I think I may have been right, but it doesn't matter anyway. You worked too hard, and you must have known it was too much too.

How is it there? Is it less stressful than it was here? I didn't hear much about you since you left the department, since many of the old 'batch' left actually. I just heard you were taking a massive amount of extra teaching at different places. I hope you gave yourself some breaks between all the madness to make some memories with your wife! I hope she is looking after herself alright...

I don't know if you've heard about J recently, but if you have some time, please send some positive vibes that way eh? It's plenty awkward, but I assume we (I will try though I probably won't be actually invited ;;;;) will all be at your memorial. You better be there to watch it too! There will be lots of important people with their important time there!!!

This noon, you have reminded me that sometimes we work too hard for things we don't even need. The things that consume much of our time, and that we obsess over don't really matter at all, yet they became the pivot of our lives. Thanks, C, for reminding me to calm my farm. All that brand really doesn't matter as much as I think it does haha~

Well anyway, I better get my ass back to work now. I will (hopefully) be seeing you in the near future, or if not, then here's a wave (*wave*) goodbye.

I GOT FLOWERS FOR VALENTINES!! :D

OK so I had to make another post on this year's Valentines because i got TWO PRETTY BOUQUETS OMFG.

Never before has this happened ;w; perhaps I'm being spoilt this year? hahaha

SO PRETTY NO!?

The left bouquet was from work, the right is from family friends that came to visit today ;w;
They brought chocolate too.
It's like their family is my family's Valentine (ી(΄◞ิ౪◟ิ‵)ʃ)♥ (is this emoji too creepy? yes? ok good!)


Yesterday we did end up going to our pretty-much-family friends' place. The son-in-law had fished up some crayfish, so we got to celebrate Chinese Lantern Fest feast with super fresh crayfish!
(perhaps it's lobster. I still don't know the difference between the two...)


Anyway, turns out I'm mildly allergic to it, so now I have these ugly and itchy af giant rash things on my hands and forearms == I hope they go away soon...


Tomorrow I will be shopping lots for presents, and hopefully to tone my hair! With purple dye. If I can find any good ones in NZ :(

How did you spend your Valentines? Link me if you blogged about your V-day!

=^.^=

Valentines Day, Tomorrow

Valentines is honestly not much of a special day for me.

The only year I remember spending it with my significant other of the time (like actually physically together with someone, not skyping or whatever) was first year of uni. Thank god Valentines is in Feb before uni starts. My bf at that time was in uni down in Dunedin so we rarely got to see each other :(

And then there's that awkward year where I went out with a friend, having completely friend-zoned him, ON VALENTINES thinking that our outing purely coincided with Valentines....

We're ok now, but we don't really hang out anymore, and I will definitely remember that awkward day forever.......... _:(´□`」 ∠):_

In retrospect, the years that I spend Valentines communicating online with my significant other were always lonelier than the years I spent it alone, or with friends. I wonder if that is the case for everyone? Long distance relationships are hard :'(

Anyway, this year I don't even have to arrange an outing with friends!

Several groups are doing stuff that night, going out, getting drunk, partying, eating their face in, you name it. But this year, the Chinese Lantern Festival happens to be on the 14th Feb!

元宵节 the festival of reuniting with family and eating 元宵(the glutinous rice balls in soup). It's held on the 15th day of the new Lunar year, I believe on the first full moon of the new year? Whatever the case - it's a good reason to pig out with the fam!

New fillings are offered every year! It's like Japanese kitkats, sooo many random flavours!

My favourite is the (fairly) traditional black sesame filling :3

My home town is HangZhou (杭州), and we always have our 元宵 with dried Osmanthus Fragrans (桂花) which adds the most beautiful subtle scent and sweetness ~ 

Now there is also a peanut filling 元宵 that's commonly sold in Chinese supermarkets which is just as yummy as the black sesame!

Like Chinese New Year, and Christmas before that, my mom and I will probably be spending 元宵节 together with our family friends in East Auckland. It's gonna be a good- and sober- night! :)

I'm super missing Rainnie their chihuahua already! Ｏ(≧▽≦)Ｏ

So yup, this is my entry for the (weekly?monthly?) gaijin-gyaru topics blog post! Link me yours!!! I need new people to follow~~ (((o(*ﾟ▽ﾟ*)o)))

Bloglovin'!

So i started off this blog with some nondescript shitty af url of gyaruandmusings.blogspot (like, I really didn't feel creative aye...) and signed up blogger with that.

But now that I have decided to keep snowrii-world.blogspot as my URL, please follow me on Bloglovin' with the link below!


<a href="http://www.bloglovin.com/blog/11755625/?claim=pakfn763ctf">Follow my blog with Bloglovin</a>

Girls' Night @ Skycity last Friday

I ended up spending the entire weekend being sleep deprived and hazy during the day, and legit sleeping, but somehow still not resting enough through the night!? am I anemic???

Anyway, L happened to have a free pass to stay at Skycity's hotel for a night this month, so she invited all of us girls in the high school gang to stay over and catch up >w<

It's super sweet of her to invite us!! Even though we have met up many times through this summer, we rarely met in the past few years since HS ;w;

Sometimes I feel like I have no idea what's even happening with some people anymore, and don't know how to even begin asking,,, *sigh*

Anyway, it really irks me how people in our group never check facebook notifications. Like, I'm pretty sure people get notified every time someone posts in a group (unless they turned it off) right!? It's not like anyone spams in there, why turn it off ==

And then some people are like - oh yeah I'm keen! and then when details are confirmed and everything, you don't hear from them. Just, wtf??? I know you've been online cause you PMed me about other stuff!!

Rant aside, the night ended up just being L and I, which was perfectly fine since it's been a long time since we had a date between the two of us. L was the only person I ever gossiped about the guys we knew back in HS I think? hahaha I'm not much of a gossiper...

As usual, I was late... BUT this time I had a legit reason. I seriously did leave the house on time, but the gigantic winds in Greenlane + umbrella in 1 hand and luggage in the other was not something I was prepared for. Seriously, what is with the winds in Greenlane!?

So we dropped everything off at the hotel, and in the lobby there was a performance for CNY! I didn't take any photos though, I was too busy staring at this girl who had really really nice legs.... (in the most non-creeper way ever.)

For dinner we went to Sushi Factory, a restaurant L frequents and which I went to once. That one time I went there with my ex two years ago omg. Most gluttonous dinner ever. <writing it down, in the unlikely case that I forget it one day lol.

L had a tempura udon and a variety sushi plate, and I had the chicken katsudon set~

Collaged everything together for instagram *lazy*

Next time we agreed to go for one of the party platters. the 55$ one looks really yummy ~~

It was actually pretty good value IMO, I think I spent around 15~20$? Many items on their menu is overpriced af, but the sets are alright, and one or two of the party platters are alright.

Now I wanna eat ramen.... buttercorn ramen~~~~ ;w;

Anyway, after dinner, we decided to go to Milse for some dessert. The original plan was to go to a bar, but the weather was shitty all afternoon/evening so we settled for dessert.

Milse was busy, as usual. The wait list for a table was at about 40 minutes. Pretty sure we spent about 20 minutes picking what we wanted anyway, but in the end we didn't stay in the restaurant to enjoy our dessert. The outside courtyard was covered though, and it's a really nice place to eat in the evening~ (you can see pics of the area in my Milse review, together with a good range of their desserts).

L had the Valrhona caramelia, coffee, and hazelnut gateaux (you can see what it looks like, and its review here), and I had a matcha green tea and strawberry gelato stick. The gelato stick was a bit of a let down... It was extremely difficult to eat and melted all over the place, plus the green tea wasn't strong and had quite an indistinct taste that wasn't matcha-y at all :(

After dessert we bought some dessert wine (dessert #2!) and chippies to munch on while we discussed life, future, pregnancy (LOL no pregnancy for those that love sashimi!!), and other serious af topics while watching cartoon network. The line between childhood and adulthood blurs more every day xD

Hardly any gossip went down that night, but the little that did...eurgh I'd rather clear from my mind kthx ;;;;

Gotta have those selfies. :D

The next morning, we decided the walk to viaduct would not be worth it for an overpriced breakfast, when there isn't even a pretty sunrise to watch, so we headed to The Shelf. It was my first time there, and I wish I had brought my DSLR because the interior deco was super nice!

We both had egg benedict, mushroom for L, and bacon (fatty fatty) for myself. I also tried The Shelf's specialty Iced Coffee which was pretty awesome cause they use coffee to make the ice cubes! Plus, the amount of chocolate in the form of both hard chocolate, and chocolate sauce was like mmmmmmmn

Not sure how I felt about an iced coffee priced at $7 though .-. those are few and far in between, in nz....

We had a little time left after that, so we dropped by smith and caugheys to get L a new concealer. MAC's concealer is actually really good for heavy coverage! I didn't end up buying anything though, still on the hunt for a nice NATURAL hime-style lipstick... (every time I buy a lipstick from Chanel, it ends up looking different to what I actually wanted fml. Probably will end up buying from Chanel again though, their lipsticks are still the nicest ;w;)

We both love staying in hotels, so it was extra nice that we got to spend the night at SkyCity ^^

And that concludes our girls' night!

=^.^=

Entered in a new giveaway!

Moon Princess giveaway

I really want the light moon princess set!

I don't own a single item from etude house so I want to see what all the fuss has been about- other than their cute packaging, which hasn't been enough of a motivation to pull me in yet. xD

Vassen Crystal Blue Circle Lens Review [Confetti]

Finally, part 4 of my 2013 Circle Lens roundup reviews!

First, here are the previous 3 reviews:
Part 1 - EOS Ice Violet
Part 2 – EOS Max Pure Blue
Part 3 - GEO Bambi (aka Princess Mimi) Almond

Now, let’s get to these pretty blue lenses!

I bought these lenses around September last year (my final CL purchase of the year) when I decided to cosplay SeeU for Armageddon. Sadly, I wasnt able to buy a commissioned dress, and being typical slow lazy me, exams crept up and I didn't end up sewing my own cosplay. I still have the fabric and all the accessories though, so I will do it this year!

Ok that was a big tangent. Back to the review!

I bought these lenses because I needed something very blue, but light, and doesn't have a big limbal ring. Even though she has a clear black limbal ring in her box cover illustration, her eyes are so blue that on cosplay, it wouldn't stand out if I used a lens with a dark ring.

I hunted ALL over the internet, and found the lightest, most limbal-less and large blue lenses I could find- Vassen Crystal Blue. Which are apparently also called i-Fairy Super Crystal Blue.

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GEO Bambi Almond (Princess Mimi) Circle Lens Review [Confetti]

Hi there~ this is part 3 of my 2013 circle lens roundup reviews!



View my other 2013 CL reviews:

Part 1 - EOS Ice Violet

Part 2 - EOS Max Pure Blue

Part 4 - Vassen Crystal Blue


Now let’s begin!

Every year, I will buy at least one pair of lenses in a brownish sort of colorwhether it be more of a chocolate, caramel, or some other shade. Geo Bambi Almond was my brown for 2013

I bought it near the start of the year, and loved it so much that I didn’t feel the need to buy any more! If it weren’t for the fact that there are sooo many lenses on the market I haven’t tried yet, I would honestly just keep re-purchasing these lenses every year. Forever.

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EOS Max Pure Blue Circle Lens Review [Confetti]

Hiya! This is part 2 of my 2013 Circle Lens roundup!



View my other 2013 CL reviews:

Part 1 – EOS Ice Violet

Part 3 – GEO Bambi (aka Princess Mimi) Almond

Part 4 – Vassen Crystal Blue



Now- to the review!

These were the first blue lenses of 2013. In earlier years, I had an obsession with green lenses and I would get a pair of green every year. But in 2012 (I think?) green lenses started looking really odd on me :’(

As much as I love green eyes, it was time to wave goodbye to those. And since I always loved grey lenses, and they worked well on me, I thought “well, why not try other cool colors, like blue?”

So in 2013, I went for this super super solid EOS Max Pure Blue pair of lenses, in my usual 14.5mm! (They are indeed very pure though, not so sure about the max...)

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EOS Ice Violet Circle Lens Review [Confetti]

Hiya!


Today I will begin reviewing the four lenses I wore through 2013!

Since I am doing the roundup of my 2013 lenses all together, here are the links to the other 3 reviews:

Part 2 - EOS Max Pure Blue

Part 3 - GEO Bambi (aka Princess Mimi) Almond

Part 4 - Vassen Crystal Blue


Now let’s get to the review!


With my lenses from last year, some were opened a little earlier in the year, some a little later. I didn’t take many selfies last year that show my lenses well, so I don’t actually have many photos for all of them.

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Chinese New Year and another visit to Milse! [Confetti]

First of all, happy Chinese/Lunar New Year everyone! For all the horses out there, I hope you stocked up on your red knickers for the year! (jks, does anyone even still believe that superstition???)


It’s been a long-standing Chinese tradition to stuff one’s face full of yummy food and Chinese spirits on new year’s eve with the extended family. But all my relatives are in China and I didn’t get to go back this year for a visit :/

My mom and I spent the NYE at our family friends’, and in fact they’re pretty much our ‘family’! We went over for Christmas as well (you can see the food, and all my selfies with their dog Rainnie here), but our CNY feast is thankfully much more humble.

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Milse

So yesterday, I had my first dinner of the lunar new year in the company of two girls I rarely get to meet up with. One of them left the city to go back to uni, so I won’t be seeing her for another couple months (T_T) and the other just came back from an exchange to the States!

I had such a good time catching up with these girls I’ve known since high school (omg so many years ago!), over some of Milse’s new desserts of the season~ I hope we can do it again next time everyone is in Auckland! （*´▽｀*）

Here are some of the desserts from last night. A couple of them were long demolished before I arrived and made sure everything was captured on camera though :’(

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Last-minute changes are irksome

OK so I remember many instances where I changed my mind at the last minute, most recently being the friday night Lion King screening at Silo Park which I realised at 6pm that I had no transport home after.

BUT in saying that, I weighed all consequences of my not attending, and seeing as everyone had someone close they could stick to, and no-one would be implicitly affected by the lack of my presence (ie. i was no-one's ride home or anything) I decided it was okay to pull out. The only downside being that I couldn't catch up with everyone and enjoy a nice evening out with the girls.

But when people decide to change their mind at the last minute, and their decisions affect people up to four relations away from them, it's just SO inconsiderate. It's like, did you not realise there may be an issue earlier? This has been in the discussion pipeline for an entire week. I understand if you haven't put much time into thinking about it because you had a lot of moving around and adjusting to do but then don't just casually give the ok to begin with then???

To me, the issue they were worried about is not really that big a deal because I know several people in the business. I'm 99% sure there will be zero problems, in fact, no-one will even give a shit. But if they're gonna be worried about it, fair enough. There are lawful implications b/c of liability and whatnot. BUT IT WAS ALWAYS THERE. It's not like the law was placed just yesterday, not like they signed their contract last week. They all KNEW what terms and conditions were in place so why chicken out at the last minute after everyone has been notified and are planing out their end of the changes??? If you're going to chicken out, do it earlier goddammit.

Anyway, the issue will be resolved, and all that's hurt is my reputation with practically everyone involved.

Great.