Is there a dashboard widget that has extended Unicode characters? I've been looking for a decent Unicode widget that allows access to some of the weirder characters like &#x2713; and &#x2717;. 

Does such a beast exist? I've tried a few and all of them seem kind of limited... Also, Apple's built-in character viewer doesn't indicate anything like HTML escape code or even Unicode number, I'd use that otherwise.

These ones I've tried:  


Characterpal
Entitiy lookup
Asciitable
I couldn't find one, unfortunately. If you know the codes (which you can easily find from the web) you can enable the Unicode Hex input from System Preferences>Language and Text>Input Sources (it's near the bottom). That way, when you hold ALT, you can enter a Unicode symbol number for that symbol to appear.

Example: ALT+270E enters a ✎ pencil.