In the brief history of audacious internet schemes, this has to rank up there with the most bizarre. On July 12, 2005, Canadian blogger Kyle MacDonald began trying to trade his way to a new house, starting with one red paper clip. His only parameters were that the trades were made online and they did not involve cash. Perhaps the truly amazing thing, in an age where pregnant women e-auction their bellies for advertising space and YouTube video posters get signed to TV development deals, is not that MacDonald succeeded but that he did it in just 14 trades. He swapped his red paper clip for a pen shaped like a fish, and he traded that for a doorknob. His trades grew bigger and bigger, from a beer keg to snowblower to an afternoon with rock star Alice Cooper. By this point, MacDonald’s quest had begun receiving publicity, and he blogged about his trades between appearances on CNN and BBC News. He ultimately agreed to trade a walk-on role in a Corbin Bernsen movie with the town of Kipling, Saskatchewan, for two-story house that he received last month. Now he’s working on a book about his trades. MacDonald talks to Media Life about how he began his quest, the trades he turned down and why he chose a paper clip.

What made you think that you could trade your way from a paper clip to a house? Where did you get the idea?
 
I’m not really sure what made me think I could do it, but I wasn't drunk at the time. I got the idea from a kids’ game called Bigger and Better. Same concept, but more knocking on doors and less internet.
 

Why start with a paper clip?
 
It was the first thing I saw when I thought of the idea.
 

Was there any trade in particular that you found most surprising?
 
Well, I was surprised at the fact that anyone wanted to trade something for the red paperclip, so the fish pen was a nice surprise. I guess an afternoon with Alice Cooper was pretty unbelievable as well.
 

How many trades did you turn down?
 
Thousands.
 

What's the craziest thing you were offered?
 
Craziest thing? Besides body parts, virginity and souls, I’d have to say that it was a two-person laser hair removal--applicable only to residents of Tennessee or Kentucky.
 

When did you start thinking that you would actually get a house?
 
I always thought I could do it, but the biggest motivation [came] after I traded up to the snowmobile. I was no longer just trading for “stuff” in people's basement at that point.

 
You've been featured in lots of different media outlets. How did you get the word out, and how much did it help?
 
I posted my phone number and email on my web site. [All of the attention I received] was all incoming media attention. I think it helped the story reach more people, so I was able to meet the other traders that way--I never contacted anybody and asked them to trade with me.
 

What do you do in real life? How much of your time did the paper clip thing take?
 
I work part time to sell a product called Table Shox that stops restaurant tables from wobbling (www.tableshox.com). OneRedPaperclip.com initially was just a weekend hobby, but by the end it was a full-time obsession. I was literally working upwards of 14 hours a day at it by the end.
 

If you could change one trade during the whole process, which would it be?
 
This is going to sound lame, but I can't imagine changing any of the trades. It was perfect.

What's your next internet venture going to be?
 
You'll have to wait and see.