http://news.com.com/Blogger+asks,+Wanna+trade+a+paper+clip+for+a+house/2100-1025_3-6061438.html

Kyle MacDonald is on the verge of successfully completing a project that on its surface sounds nothing less than absurd: Trading--with the help of a blog--a single red paper clip for a house.

Since embarking on his house hunt last year, MacDonald has traded with people from across Canada and the United States and is now sitting on a year's free rent for an apartment in Phoenix.

He announced on his one red paperclip blog his intention to take the clip he'd used on his resume and trade it up, step-by-step, until he got a house. And his goal is getting tantalizingly close.

"This has turned into an obsession," said MacDonald. "So many people have heard that I'm trading up to a house that if I don't make it, I'll be a schmuck. I'll take a house anywhere in the world. That's kind of the adventure, trading up to a house and then moving there."

MacDonald, 26, currently lives in Montreal and has spent the last year doing odd jobs and traveling. But the project that began as a throwback to "bigger and better," a game he and his friends played as children, has now become his full-time occupation. And it's allowed him to spawn a Net cult following that's hoping he'll succeed. Popular blogs such as boingboing have been tracking his progress for months.

MacDonald's trades have gone as follows:

• Paper clip for a fish-shaped pen
• Fish-shaped pen for a clay doorknob with a funny face on it