I'm sure you've heard this over and over again, but don't bother getting a USB miner if you are looking to make profit anytime soon.
+1 I like to buy broken BEs now to convert into decorative lapel pins. You could maybe break even if you choose to solo mine an alt coin before release...now the new alts like tek, joule, asicoin and butterfly coin seem to be for sale on exchanges so you could consider mining those options too. If you're investigating this technology with the idea of earning more than .25 btc per device purchased, you're late.