Can anybody direct me where to find the big gigantic virtual machine file on my mac? I'm running 10.6.4. thanks.
While running Parallels Desktop, goto Window -> Virtual Machine List -> right click your virtual machine and select Show in Finder. This will usually lead to a .pvm file at ~/Documents/Parallels/ The gigantic part of a .pvm is the virtual hard disk .hdd inside the .pvm (if it's not a Boot Camp virtual hard disk). You can see the .hdd when you right click a .pvm in the Finder and select "Show Package Contents".
Also, if your virtual machine is currently running or paused, then there is also a huge .mem file which stores the virtual machine's RAM.