I'm not really obsessed with the red paper clip guy, but I am impressed with his ingenuity, and fascinated with how his red paper clip has now taken on a life of its own. His last trade, in his quest to trade a red paper clip for a house, is a trade for a face-to-face meeting with Alice Cooper. With all the Alice Cooper fanatics out there, he should be able to make a good trade with that. You mean you don't know who or what the red paper clip guy is? Where have you been? Here's the very abbreviated version.

Kyle has a blog. In July 2005, he decided to try to take one red paper clip and transform it into a house. The point was to trade the red paper clip for something, and then trade that something for something, and keep trading until he got a house. You can see all the items he has traded for so far at his web site.

Recently, Kyle's red paper clip project came to Phoenix, where he traded a recording contract to a local woman, Jodi Gnant, who wants to be a star. She owns a duplex in Phoenix. She gave Kyle a year of rent at her house in downtown Phoenix, plus a few incidentals, in the trade. Then Leslie, the person who rents the other part of the duplex from Jodi, asked the owner of the restaurant she works at if he'd get in on the deal. That person happens to be Alice Cooper, because Leslie works at Alice Cooper'stown in downtown Phoenix. Alice agreed to spend an afternoon with someone who traded for the one year of free rent. Alice won't be getting anything personally out of the deal, he's just helping out an employee.

So here we are. The next trade hasn't happened yet, but Phoenix is playing a prominent role in helping Kyle make his red paper clip into a house of his own. Will it be the next trade? Will an afternoon with Alice Cooper be the trade that makes Kyle a homeowner?

I have no doubt that he'll achieve his goal, get a movie contract, and more, all borne from a game he used to play with his friends when he was a kid. You gotta give him credit.

If you decide to offer up a trade for an afternoon with Alice Cooper, you'd better know more about him before you meet him!

_{Photo provided courtesy of Kyle MacDonald}