The Hawker Squawker

As of a few days ago, the latest Dr. Who season 5 that aired in the US on BBC America was “Cold Blood” (episode 9). But the latest episode to air in the UK on BBC 3 is “The Pandorica Opens” (episode 12). Since I have access to BBC 3 through work, i couldn’t resist when it just happened to be on, so i decided to take a sneak peak into the future.

OH MAN! This episode is so far and away the best and most amazing episode of Dr. Who i’ve ever seen. Oh, it was also the worst episode ever since it was a cliff hanger that looks to lead to an even more amazing season finale with episode 13 (“The Big Bang”).

I don’t dare give any spoilers or else i’ll get lynched, but … wow. Stay tuned people. If you haven’t started on this season of Dr. Who, i’d recommend begging, borrowing, or stealing every episode, just so you can get the background needed to watch the final two episodes.

This is what i’ve been working on the last two or three days whenever i can sneak some time away from everyone   It’s been nice to get some hobby work done.  I’ll try to talk Luann into getting some decent photos of this beastie later, but just wanted to post something really quick for anyone who might be interested.

I’ve created an RSS feed for the miniature portion of my website.  If you’re curious to keep up with what i do in the world of painting and modeling, be sure to add it to your reader.  It’s not high traffic (maybe one post per month on average).

My miniature website: http://www.scotthawker.com/mini

My miniature site RSS feed: http://www.scotthawker.com/rss?type=mini

I was just reading an interview with Richard Garriott (the first 2nd generation astronaut) in which he was talking about his trip into space. But he also spent some time discussing how he got to be in the position he’s in. As a young boy his dad was an astronaut with NASA and flew aboard Skylab! (He also did a shuttle mission later on). His mom was an artist. He was an impressionable teenager when Dungeons and Dragons came on the scene and the first personal computers made an appearance. He was perfectly positioned to become what he’s become – the premier fantasy game designer of the 80′s and 90′s.



He’s gone on African safaris, jungle adventures canoing down the Amazon, hunting for meteorites in Antarctica, visited the Titanic at the bottom of the ocean — just to name a few. Add now he’s been to space. But it’s not just his opportunities that have given him this chance. Sure – he had the silver spoon, so to speak, but he didn’t just sit around and go to Harvard. He decided to say “yes i want to do all this crazy stuff.”



It reminds me of the movie that came out last year (2008) with Jim Carrey – “Yes man“, in which Jim’s character goes to a seminar and afterwards says yes to every opportunity that comes his way – no matter what it is. It changes his life.



In my own life, i’ve had some opportunities. Nothing as spectacular as “hey, do you want to go into space” maybe, but still – chances to do things. It’s sometimes hard for me to say yes. I like the status-quo. I’m not super adventurous. But i want to be. Maybe not to the extend Jim Carrey was (i mean, the old lady next door? *shudder*), but more so than i am. I think i’ll work on saying yes a little more often and see what kind of adventure life takes me on.

One of these things is not like the other. It’s also not like i left it this morning after i finally finished painting it after weeks of work… I have no words…

Some little person decided to take a look, and then take the knight for a walk, and then leave it on the driveway and then let it get run over by a bicycle. I guess i can try to salvage something. He’s got battle wounds, right?

For the past few months i’ve been working on an application using the Android platform (the gPhone). It’s a remake of a great game i use to play on my Palm and still play on my desktop in the palm simulator all the time called Shisensho. Since i liked it so much i figured “why not recreate it for my new android phone?”

After putting in a few hours here and a few hours there as time permitted, it’s finally finished. I’ve put it up on the android market, so anyone who has an android powered device or is running the emulator … feel free to grab a copy

The comments are pretty much as expected. Some people are just spam – all the apps get that. And there are many comments about “i don’t like it, the tiles are too small”. That was totally expected. I thought long and hard about how to deal with that, and in the end decided that there was no good solution – i can’t remove the number of tiles without changing the mechanics of the game, and i can’t make them bigger without only showing a subset of the board (which would change the dynamics of the game as well). So i opted for a unique input method. Rather than select what you actually pressed on, i am selecting the tile above where you press. That way you can see what you’ve selected. As expected here, many people don’t get that and think that the tile selection is “off”. Maybe i’ll make a preference selection so that you can either select above or at your click.

In any event, it’s kind of fun to see reactions. Mostly positive, a few negative (you can’t please everyone). Since i mostly just made the game for my own use, i don’t really mind if anyone else likes it or not. If they do, great. If not, oh well, i’m sure they’ll uninstall it

It’s been a busy week and lots of interesting things have happened. Here are a few highlights:

First, with halloween and then Gwyneth’s birthday back to back, and my mom visiting, and going to some plays, and parties, etc.., i haven’t had time to breath for a bit and at about 11pm last night (Nov. 1), my wife asks, “weren’t you going to do NANOWRIMO?” … oops. Oh well – i’m screwed now. First day is done and i’m already behind. I even had several chapters outlined and everything. I might still do it a bit for fun, but i’m not going to try to get 50,000 words in the month. I’ll focus instead on getting the first few chapters written and fleshed out really well. See if i can’t describe my setting so vividly that it would make Dicken’s proud.

Another thing that’s been eating up a huge portion of my time is my new Android G1 phone. That’s right folks. I couldn’t resist. I ran over to the T-Mobile store on Oct. 22 and ordered myself a new phone. It arrived 2 days later in the mail and i’ve been playing with it ever since. If you’re not sure what the G1 is, you probably don’t really care about cool phones all that much and so no amount of description would really do it justice. You’ll just have to see one in action for yourself. But this is in my opinion the best phone on the planet right now. Totally amazing. I’ve been nothing but happy with it since the moment i turned it on. Oh, and yes – i’ve been spending 1 or 2 or .. 4 hours a day learning the Android SDK and writing programs for it. I’m working on a game right now (you may recall my post from 2-3 weeks back talking about pathfinding algorithms … well, here’s the tie-in)

So, one last thing. And for those of you who haven’t read the Harry Potter novels yet, but might some day … just skip the rest of this blog entry. I’ll even put it in black text on a black div so you can’t see it unless you highlight the text. If you want to know what i’m writing about … read on!

Ran across this awesome life size storm trooper made out of legos at the local WalMart today. How cool is that?

I’ve updated several of the hobby pages with newer images:


Celestial Dragon 1

Celestial Dragon 2

3D Catan


More coming soon!

I’ve been rather quiet of late. My wife has been quite busy dealing with the search (and now funeral arrangements) of her grandfather. She’s also been out doing marriage photos, newborn photos, and infant photos for several people.

I’ve been busy watching the kids, and also with a project at work I have taken a few spare minutes here and there to add a new feature to my website. The rotating image. For an example of it, click here to see Oculous the rotton eye in 360 degrees.