Five With Five With Flores Friday – TeeVee [and] Everything

Ironic note: Yes, I know this is actually being published on a Saturday 🙁

Concerning:

Star City Games Questions :: Top Chef Draft :: The Cape
Young Justice, episode 2 :: P!nk’s new video :: … you know, “everything”

ONE – Star City Games Questions

Most of you probably know that I started writing for Star City Premium [again] last week. Now I am going to answer all the questions you asked around this possibly (?) surprising (?) return.

frm
yes, i have a question: why did you take so long to come back? 🙂

Unfortunately, I am not sure how to answer this question. I mean, what is “so long” in this context? If you want to submit a follow up question, I will try harder?

Err… I do everything my wife says.

themandotcom
Though I understand your motivations, but this marks the end of Michael J Free-ness! 🙁

It absolutely does not mark the end of Michael J Free-ness. I still write Top Decks every week on DailyMTG; and I think I’ve updated this blog more this week than I have in certain months!

MinnesotaMatt
They better have backed up a truck.

Can you give us an idea of how long the contract lasts so that we can know which subscription to sign up for.

I left premium with you and now will sign up as they got you back.

There is no specific termination date to my writing at Star City, so I can’t tell you to only buy such-and-such package if your interest in Premium tracks only to my being there. I can tell you that I have planned about 20 pieces over the next two months, as well as another as-yet unannounced large-scale project (um… oops?) 🙂

Alfrebaut
Damn, does this mean I have to start getting SCG Premium again? Also, what does this mean about TCGPlayer? Are you writing 2-3 articles per week plus making videos?

I am doing about 10 total pieces on Star City this month and next (articles and videos), plus Top Decks. I am not currently writing at TCGPlayer. We haven’t plotted out what I will be doing in March yet, but I would expect to still be at SCG then 🙂

Frelance
It’s all a trick. Really it’s BELLA under contract to SCG now, not Mike

This isn’t a question. Think “Jeopardy”.

GRat
I have a question, when are you sending me Blightning? :p

Um, you have my phone number.

ReeceP
[From Twitter] I have a question. Why did you make me spend money again?! Damn yooou! Should @SteveSadin share some blame?

[Separately, here on the blog]I think I have a real question. In your explanation article, you talk about How to mashup. My question is – Why mashup (in the abstract)?

Also (there’s always more <_<) specific to the decks involved with the UW Mashup – What does mashing up the two decks in question gain rather than porting them to current extended? Did you prior/have you since tried extended versions of those decks, and if not do you have any gut feelings as to how they would go?

[Twitter question] – Yes, you have to. It is required. On the check you send, write “Michael J. Flores” on the “memo” line.

[Regular questions] – A couple of reasons… 1) Opponents are more likely to make mistakes when playing against mashups because they don’t anticipate the other awesome thing you are going to do when they put resources towards the first awesome thing, 2) different decks have different matchup advantages in the context of a metagame and mashup decks can often take advantage of multiple predator positions, and 3) the cost is relatively low in many cases, certainly in this one.

TWO – Top Chef Draft

Sick week for the home team on the Top Chef front. For those of you following at home, this is how the draft went:

This week my horse Carla took down the elimination challenge for (-2) points and I got an extra (-1) from Tre’s appearance in the winners’ circle.

It was a double elimination week, so double dagger for Luis (Tiffani) and Megan (Jamie… who was more than due to go).

Current standings:

1. YT: 2
2. Phil: 3
3. Luis: 20
4. Megan: 23

I am once again in the lead, but the long odds have to be on Phil right now… He has Angelo (one of the two favorites) and Filipino Dale (a surprise monster this season). Many pundits probably have Megan more likely to win than YT (she has Marcel, who can win) when I lost my first pick last week… But for now, I’ll enjoy my lead 🙂

THREE – The Cape

From BDM’s Twitter feed / Facebook:

The Cape was not good.

I don’t think it’s as bad as BDM apparently does, but I think his 140-character analysis is pretty hilarious.

The Cape is full of ludicrous comic book cliches. I would tell you some of them but you would never believe me. Okay, you twisted my arm / pulled my leg. The hero is an ex-cop on the run after being framed for being — you guessed it — a supervillain mastermind… by the actual supervillain mastermind (because, you know… cops are fierce fighters adjacent to hand-to-hand vigilantes on the metagame clock of “what to do on a Saturday night”).

He is recruited by a carnival of crime (btw there is such a thing in the Marvel universe as the Circus of Crime), who taps him (as a former police officer) to pull of some, you know crimes [I didn’t really understand this part, but I was playing MTGO at the time]. Then, inexplicably they turn good, start risking their lives for his quest to redeem himself and unseat the supervillain mastermind, and, you know, train him to be a superhero.

Two paragraphs ago I said The Cape is full of comic book cliches; what I mean was just cliches. The supervillain mastermind is the boss of a security firm that is privatizing the police force. So it is also a diatribe against privatization.  Because, you know, companies are bad. Or something.

Did I mention the show isn’t good?

Yeah, I’ll probably watch the show until it gets canceled around ep four or whatever; but don’t expect me to like it.

FOUR – Young Justice, episode 2

I liked it!

The first episode ended with our heroes being decked by a then-enslaved Superboy. Predictably (if only from the promo art), Superboy turns face, frees Robin, Kid Flash, and Aqualad, and the four go on to found the as-yet-unnamed [on-screen] squad of Young Justice.

At the end of the episode they are joined by the uber-cute Miss Martian, shape-shifting “niece” of the Justice League’s Oreo-addicted JJ. So at this point they are  just missing the female archer shown in much of the promo art. I don’t consider any of this spoiler-iffic as the first two eps are just a “gathering of eagles” and that you could imagine into place by watching a commercial.

Dissatisfying plot points:

• Speaking of archers… I would have liked to see some on-screen attention to getting Speedy / Red Arrow [back]. What? Does Robin not have his cell phone number?
• Annoying – Cadmus has Robin, Aqualad, and Kid Flash tied up. I am not sure Kid Flash even has a secret identity, but Dick Grayson’s real name would be at a premium… But Robin still has his domino mask on while shackled. Not only that, but they leave him his utility belt, lock picks, holographic iPads or whatever… Everything he would need to bust out (which he does).

What I loved: My favorite character is Aqualad. I talked about him in the last post, and I like him even more now. They haven’t explained his water manipulation or electric eel powers on-screen yet, but I like how he uses them in the battles!

Old buddy Marc Aquino pointed out that there is an all-new Aqualad in the DC Universe that was recently introduced in Brightest Day (I obviously wasn’t aware). The Young Justice Aqualad seems to be based on that cat, instead of the original:

The new DC Universe Aqualad character.

Overall, loved Young Justice and plan on watching every ep ever… With Clark and Bella of course.

FIVE – P!nk’s New Video

A lot of you cats know who Bella Flores is. For example you have seen this video:

Now because Bella loves Batman more than some of her own family members, wants to major in “fighting badguys” in school, and has deep interests that include karate, chess, and Sorin Markov, lots of peeps on the outside think that I have exerted some kind of undue influence on her young opinions.

The truth is, this couldn’t be further from the truth.

Bella has a strong affinity with… understanding things. About three years ago, we let her use the computer to look at like Mickey Mouse Club videos on a Disney website. Despite being three and (at least as far as we knew) incapable of reading, Bella successfully navigated to the [more interesting] Batman- and Power Rangers-themed action video games that were also present on Disney properties.

Power Rangers was her gateway drug, but now Bella likes heroes the max.

So in terms of my being an undue influence on her… not true. In fact, she is more of an influence on me than you might expect. P!nk is Bella’s favorite artist (primarily due to hit “So What”), and because she tends to like stuff I like, I decided to try stuff she likes…

… which is how we are concluding with P!nk’s new vid. It is my early pick for video of the year (last year’s nod would have gone to “Telephone” by Lada Gaga + Beyonce). Enjoy!

“Raise Your Glass” by P!nk

This is a video of memorable, somewhat shocking, and generally effed-up visual images; my personal fave (I don’t know if the word “fave” actually applies here) is at about 1:11.

That’s it!

LOVE
MIKE