For the benefit of those not logged into the shoutbox, a sad piece of news to pass along. Noted East Coast arcade player Mark "ZAP" Michaels passed away recently. He was a member of our East Coast BOTA team for nearly all of the tournaments and we would often meet up to have some drinks and play games at Barcade for friendly score attempts as well. In addition to being an awesome player (could play a bunch of Williams games indefinitely, Defender, Robotron, Joust, etc, 1m point Centipede player, etc), he was really just an awesome guy, lots of fun and always smiling and laughing. I attached a pic of me messing with one of his games during a BOTA practice I believe, he had a great sense of humor and always enjoyed helping others on games more than increasing his own scores.
I will truly miss our times at Barcade and at BOTA and cannot express what a massive loss this is for a community for those that never met him. Sometimes this hobby tends to focus primarily on what is negative about it, but Mark was always positive. When a few of us were getting down on ourselves one year for being behind in the tourney, Mark was always quick to add "At least we're having the most fun though" and that was him, literally never a negative word about anyone or any situation at least when I was competing with him.
Truly a good guy and he will be sorely missed.
