Burn Notice, new original series on USA June 28th

Okay, I don't watch very much television, you all know my favorite show by now I am sure, but my dad and I may just have a new series to watch. The USA Network has one called Burn Notice coming out on my dad's birthday that I think just looks kewl. It's about a CIA operative that gets fired, well, if you check out the previews at the official page for USA Network's Burn Notice you can see what the basic idea of the series is. Basically CIA agents are not just fired, they are 'burned'.

Michael Westen, played by Jeffery Donovan, is out on assignment when he gets a "Burn Notice", which pretty much means that no one will touch him because someone has told all the other intelligence agencies that he is unreliable. This is not good. It also makes it hard to find work since he wants to keep trying to find out who burned him and why, so he turns to the only job that lets him make use of his skills. Private investigator.

That could make for a very kewl series if they do it right. I also can't wait to see Bruce Campbell in action again. Love that guy's stuff and he's apparently going to have a regular role in this series as the guy watching over Michael for the Feds.

My creative little mind has, of course, been working overtime on just what a former spy would do to get the job done as a PI while trying to lay low and not draw attention to himself. When my friend and I was talking this over last night as we talked about the show such things came up in snickered discussion about fake glasses and newspapers and such, but really, anyone that watched TV when Mac was on knows that a man can do damn near anything if he has the proper thought processes, a pencil, a stick of chewing gum and a roll of Duct tape. Right?

I could go into explanations on how someone makes an air powered dart gun using a can of compressed air for removing dust from keyboards, a strip of paper and a needle, but we really don't want the kiddies trying that trick out, do we? Fire extinguishers are a tried and true fictional staple of the makeshift weapon for immobilizing a person without killing them. I'm a horrible muse abusing person, so I have trouble thinking of non-lethal ways to deal with people, but then, my mom always told me that my grandfather said if a man's worth pointing a gun at he's worth shooting and if he's worth shooting he's worth killing.

There are things other than weapons that spies turned PI's would need, though. How about being able to disguise one of them fancy digital lock picking systems you see on TV as a cellular phone or PDA? Maybe get a beeper that is a one shot tranquilizer or ohhh... build a small needle with truth serum into a lock / alarm fob deal for car keys. Just press one button to disarm a safety on it, then the other button to release the needle? Diabetic test needle things would work great for that as well. He could just carry around a little case of what are normally insulin injections but instead they are assorted stuff like truth serum or acids to melt out a lock or whatever.

Okay, enough of that, LOL, what more serious sort of things might a spy have up his sleeve when he is most likely investigating things like cheating spouses and insurance fraud?

He would of course need ways to collect fingerprints and take covert pictures. Both of them are easy enough. You can get a fingerprint using powdered pencil lead or talcum powder and a bit of scotch tape. Cameras can be disguised as anything now days.

Okay, I'll shut up about Burn Notice now and go back to reading over the website, I want to find out more about what Bruce Campbell's role in that series is, (they have an interview with him on the site! I want to watch that). You go check it out when you have a few minutes to spare, and at least watch the premier on June 28th (yup, that's my Dad's birthday lol), 10/9c on USA. It should be a good series, and I think my dad'll love it, so I definitely need to put it on for him that night.