Is there a special tool for getting those nice big shaved chocolate curls to place on top of a cake, or do you all just use a regular vegetable peeler? An even sillier question is where do you get your chocolate? I've used candy bars (Hersery) in the past and a vegetable peeler, but don't get the results I want. : ( Any suggestions? I'm going for big thick curls! : )
I use a regular vegetable peeler and get my chocolate for shavings from the Kroger near-by. They carry huge chunks of great high quaility chocolate.
You can use a paint scraper. It works really well for me.
EDITED to add that I melt Callebaut chocolate and spread it out across a clean surface. Wait until it's almost set and then drag the scraper across.
You can also use an ice-cream scoop if you want to get large curls.
if your chocolate is too hard, your curls will come out more like flakes. a softor chocolate will create bigger curls.
from Cupcakes! from the Cakemix Doctor: "The larger the surface on which to drag the peeler, the larger the curl, and the warmer the chocolate, the larger the curl."
hope this helps! 
Thanks for the info. everyone. I don't have a Kroger here... FerretDeprived, do you know the brand of chocolate you buy? I wonder if one of the stores up here carries it?
Sounds like dark chocolate wouldn't work as well as milk... since it usually harder.
So, I wonder if I buy chocolate candy melts and microwave them, then pour them out on a hard surface, if I could shave them into large curls?
With the candy melts one cool thing you can do is line the inside of a flexible bowl... like the Take Along style that are supposed to be disposable and when the chocolate dries flex the bowl and let the chocolate break apart. It looks really cool and would be a nice toping for a cake, but not as dramatic as the curls.
For me Kroger sells big chunks of Ghirardelli ,but if you search around you should be able to find some. If you can't find it though you can always get just ghirardelli chocolate chips and melt them in a cookie sheet let it set, as suggested above, and curl it that way. If its done that way i'd use a paint scraper to. 
Good luck!
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