I laughed too, forgot to start new sentence Yes I sounded like a little kid - couldn't resist lol

And yes metal Surf is by faaaar the best, and I'm so glad that Flash was demoted to regular TM. It was a whole easier when there was only 5 of them, then you could have an evenly typed team, instead of having to worry about part water or flying types... Certainly makes it all interesting though!

Yeah, I realized how rude that comment was after I typed it (about the laughing). Sorry.

I am glad they made Flash a TM, so now I can actually teach the psychic in my party it when I get to a dark cave, and then overwright Flash once I get through the cave.

I'd be much happier if they replaced HMs with something like a "Surfing License", this frees up your pokemon's valuable movepool space and also removes the question of why you need to teach birds to fly or fish to swim

That would be super helpful. What if I don't want to carry around three Pokemon for HM's only, right? Seriously, I have three level 11 Pokemon in my party, for the sole purpose of having HM's.