Hawthorne Chair Peter Teachout Assassinated...Again (Summer Visitation 2009)

Photo By John Hoff

Almost one year after his gruesome, fatal Halo 3 match with my son Alex Hoff on or about June 22, 2008, Hawthorne Chair Peter Teachout asked for a rematch.

Things went pretty much the same way, with a final score of roughly 25 to 5 in favor of Alex.

In the previous test of wills, Alex favored a "plasma grenade" for most of his virtual killing. This time, realizing Peter's lone, isolated talent of fighting at close range with a sword, Alex mostly utilized long-range weapons such as a sniper rifle and rocket launcher...

In one particular crude and brutal confrontation, Alex used a flying "banshee" aircraft to simply crush Peter to death against a large outcropping of rock. Plenty of times, when Peter got his hands on an aircraft, Alex would hijack the aircraft and make Peter fall off, over the side.

"How are you DOING that?" Peter asked.

Casually giving away valuable tactical information, Alex told Peter to hit the "A" button. At times, Alex appeared to be toying with Peter like a cat toys with a twitching mouse.

The lopsided rematch was not without some errors by Alex, including one incident of "showboating." Over confident, Alex allowed Peter to get ahold of a "banshee" aircraft, apparently because Alex thought it was fun to shoot the aircraft down with Peter aboard. However, Peter used the aircraft to kill Alex and win one of the few points he scored in the rematch. Alex's father (that would be me) seized an opportunity to rub in the lesson of "showboating" with a weak enemy who did not lack SOME capacity to inflict damage.

Alex argued that I didn't have any basis to criticize, since my own Halo skills are not even as developed as Peter's. To this I responded, "I am the media, providing commentary on this great conflict. And I know showboating when I see it, and that's what I'm reporting."

Alex didn't really have an argument for this, except to become much more cool efficient and make short work of Peter, so the husband and father of four could FINALLY knock off playing Halo 3 and hit the sack...no doubt dreaming of a rematch in June of 2010.