A man with a dream of owning a house turned a red paper clip into a three-bedroom house in western Canada through a series of shrewd Internet trades over the past year.
Canadian Kyle MacDonald, 26, got his idea from a children’s game. He started with a simple online offer on July 12, 2005 to trade the paper clip for something a little bigger and better. Fourteen online trades later, he became the proud owner of an unfurnished two-story house.
Two women from Vancouver were the first to buy into his scheme, trading a pen made from a wooden fish for the paper clip.
PHOTO: AP
This was quickly snapped up by an artist in Seattle who offered MacDonald a hand-made doorknob in exchange, which was traded for an outdoor camping stove.
Soon, a man in California offered MacDonald an electricity generator for the stove, which he traded to a man in New York for a neon beer sign and a keg.
Thereafter, he traded these for a snowmobile, then a ski vacation, a van, a recording contract, a one-year apartment rental, an afternoon with rock star Alice Cooper, and a snow globe that featured the rock band KISS.
Many of the people who had heard about MacDonald’s project on the Internet were upset when they heard about the snow globe. They thought that MacDonald had given up or just made a big mistake.
However, he proved them wrong when he then traded the snow globe to a Hollywood director for a role in his movie. Most people might not want such a strange snow globe, but the director is a collector.
Finally, the Canadian town of Kipling offered to trade a house for the movie role, which it plans to auction off to promote the city.
(AFP)
一名夢想擁有自宅的男子去年透過一連串精明的網路交易，用一根紅色迴紋針換到加拿大西部一棟三房的屋子。
二十六歲的加拿大男子凱爾?麥唐納從一個兒童遊戲得到這個靈感。二００五年七月十二日，他透過網路，用單純的以物易物方式，想把迴紋針換成更大更好的東西。經過十四次線上交易後，他得意地成為一棟兩層樓空屋的所有人。
最先捧場的是兩名來自溫哥華的女子，她們用一枝木製魚型筆跟他交換那根迴紋針。
緊接著西雅圖一名藝術家就用一個手工製門把跟麥唐納交換鉛筆，之後手工製門把又被拿去換了一個露營爐具。
不久，美國加州一名男子再以發電機和麥唐納交換爐具，然後麥唐納又拿這部發電機和紐約一名男子交換了一個啤酒霓虹招牌及一個啤酒桶。
之後，他又陸續換到雪上摩托車、滑雪度假旅遊、一輛廂型車、一紙唱片合約、一份一年的公寓租約、與搖滾明星艾利斯?庫柏共度一個下午，以及一個以搖滾樂團Kiss為主題的雪景球。
許多聽過麥唐納網路交易計畫的人在得知雪景球的事情時，紛紛為他感到意外與不值。他們認為麥唐納不是已經放棄就是犯了個大錯。
然而，麥唐納證明大家都錯了，他隨後用這個雪景球跟一位好萊塢導演交換參與電影演出的機會。大多數人可能都不想要顆這麼奇怪的雪景球，但這名導演正好是個雪景球收藏家。
最後，加拿大吉卜林鎮用一棟房子和麥唐納交換這個電影角色。小鎮方面計畫拍賣這個角色來推廣當地觀光。
（法新社／翻譯：林倩如）
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