This just in-Zengeku's favorite sport is TD-bashing!
Good one. I laughed.

Not entirely accurate though. It's not exclusive to TD. I just love bashing games in general. :V
"Skip TD" Bad idea. At my current skill level I can clear it (easily) if I could just. stop. DERPING.
That is actually the reason I suggested not doing TD first. I've plenty of experience with losing things through derps and I find it horrifyingly infuriating. I'd much rather die to something because it's hard and overwhelms me rather than something that isn't hard and have me derping because it's not engaging enough or whatever causes derps for you. If you are derping a lot on TD (happened on my clear too) then you should practice some more until you don't derp as much. Perfect stages and the like.
It's just my advice though, you of course just do as you please.
"don't bother memorizing" I'll tie this into "grab all the reds you can"-without memorizing chains/spawns, I'll die trying to get lives.
I'm probably just going to switch to greens in Stage 4 though-hopefully bombspamming is enough to clear, when I get to it.
If you feel that you need to memorize, by all means do so, though you should be prepared to improvise if an unexpected opportunity presents itself or if you mess up what you've learnt. Also, never abandon your runs no matter how much of a lost cause it might seem.
Because UFO lunatic scares me and isn't fun.
You know, it still scares me too. It's a brutal game. As I always say, have a few stabs at the stages every once in a while and you'll eventually feel confident in your ability to clear it.
*notices inability to play most of Double Spoiler past Level 8*
You do know what this means don't you?