It's tempting to forget about finding a larger meaning in the story of Kyle MacDonald and to just sit back and enjoy it. Mr. MacDonald is the 26-year-old Canadian blogger who has rocketed from Internet cult figure to mainstream news item since he pulled off a remarkable bartering feat recently, trading up from a single red paper clip to a house in 12 months. (Yes, a house -- albeit a small one, in a dot of a town called Kipling, in the unglamorous Canadian province of Saskatchewan.)

He's so famous that his story has been featured on Japanese television. That fact alone means we are probably going to have find a larger meaning here somewhere. But first, the fun stuff.

Mr. MacDonald, of Montreal, apparently didn't have much in the way of assets in July last year except for imagination, optimism, an Internet connection and a red paper clip. He certainly didn't have a house, and he and his girlfriend were getting tired of paying rent. Then, in one of those light-bulb flashes that gave the world E=mc2 and the insight into gravity, he recalled a childhood bartering game he used to play and saw how he could put his random assets to work for him.