Saw the new Avengers movie.
Without going into any plot details whatsoever, it was awesome. The question of an Avengers movie is, if we shove all these high power heroes together, who could be a believable threat? The other movies never found a good answer. Infinity War... does not have that problem. MCU Thanos is terrifying. On the level of Darth Vader or Frieza.
The plotting was cool too. The other huge crossovers (looking at you Civil War) struggled with the large number of characters. This one makes it work. Everyone feels in character and most of them have a strong motive for being there. The fight scenes have the epic scale of a typical MCU movie but are comprehensible like they were in Winter Soldier.
....I really don't know about everyone being in character. Dr. Strange giving Thanos the Time Stone to save Tony Stark's life is what pissed me off the most about the plot. They literally just met a few fucking hours ago, Dr. Strange explicitly said that he would gladly let Tony Stark or Peter Parker die for the sake of the time stone, he knew that Thanos was close to finishing his task, and yet he pulled a "righteous hero hopelessly betrayed by love" and gave Thanos the time stone anyway. I've seen this stunt being abused before, but it was never this egregious. And what's more, they played this same stunt twice in this movie, the first time being in the very beginning of the movie with Thor and Loki. Come up with something original for once, Jesus Christ.
I agree, it would be out of character for Dr. Strange to give Thanos the Time Stone to save Stark's life. That's why he didn't. Remember that he used the Time Stone to look at a whole bunch of possible futures not that long before he did that. And when he was asked about why he did that, he replied with "Its the endgame". That is, sometimes you have to sacrifice a few pieces to win the game. Based on his knowledge of the future, Dr. Strange gave up the Time Stone in order to ultimately achieve victory. Never underestimate a wizard.
I interpreted it as Dr Strange saw Stark as a critical piece of the end game, and bargained with the time stone in order to keep that piece in play. Knowing full well that the type of powers they're contending with are capable of undoing whatever damage is done. Similarly, I think Loki was just desperate, and giving his stone up was his last ditch attempt at creating a window to take one last shot at Thanos. They had otherwise lost, and it was going to be taken from him anyway.
I have multiple unexpected happies.
1. Stalker 2 announced for realz. I absolutely loved the Stalker games.
2. You know those little man-made ponds that dot every suburban residential area? I have one of those right behind my house. On a whim, I spent a few minutes casting my kid's literally a toy fishing rod, and unexpectedly caught a decent largemouth bass a couple days ago. Today I caught an even bigger... I think it was a black crappie? Did some reading, and apparently many of these ponds actually have decent fish in them, and I've been wanting to go fishing so much lately.