A movie: John Carter.

From Academy Award®–winning filmmaker Andrew Stanton comes “John Carter” — a sweeping action-adventure set on the mysterious and exotic planet of Barsoom (Mars).

“John Carter” is based on a classic novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs, whose highly imaginative adventures served as inspiration for many filmmakers, both past and present.

The film tells the story of war-weary, former military captain John Carter (Taylor Kitsch), who is inexplicably transported to Mars where he becomes reluctantly embroiled in a conflict of epic proportions amongst the inhabitants of the planet, including Tars Tarkas (Willem Dafoe) and the captivating Princess Dejah Thoris (Lynn Collins).

In a world on the brink of collapse, Carter rediscovers his humanity when he realizes that the survival of Barsoom and its people rests in his hands.

Watch the trailers at Disney Studios Singapore: here.

AK71 gets recognition from the government!

Some time back, I wrote about how I was asked to take part in Eldershield. That blog post generated many good comments, putting forth arguments for and against me taking up Eldershield.

In the end, I decided to take up Eldershield because of an appeal by LP, the blog master of "Bully the Bear". He said "...  I wish to appeal to your sense of public charity - help contribute to the pool of money so that those poor elders can insure against this risk at lower premiums." That more or less made up my mind for me.

Today, as I was going through my mail, I came across one that had the words "ON GOVERNMENT SERVICE" together with our national crest on the envelope. I experienced palpitations.

A traffic offence? I flipped the envelope and saw the return address: "NSSC, 1, Depot Road, Singapore 109681." Wah! Being called up for reservist? Or did I forget to inform MINDEF that I would be going overseas before my last trip?

I opened the envelope and this was what I saw:

Paragraph 2 is of the greatest interest to me:

"In recognition of your contribution to National Service... you are entitled to an annual deduction of $1,500 from your taxable income... "

Of course, the letter also reminded me that I am ageing.

Related post:
Tea with AK71: Eldershield.