The World's Largest

People love extremes. We, as humans, love to be curious, fascinated, shocked, and constantly wowed, that is why people slow down to stair at car accidents, that gossip magazines do so well, and why Madonna can't seem to just go away. So, to help keep your EXTREME THRILL LEVEL up, here is a list of.... The World's Largest!

Tallest Man
Robert Wadlow is the original "gentle giant". He was born as a normal-sized baby, but soon his perky pituitary gland triggered serious abnormal growth. By the age of 13 he was already 7'4 and he kept getting bigger.... he eventually topped out at 8 ft. and 11.1 inches. He unfortunately died at the young age of 22. His death in 1940 attracted more than 30,000 mourners and has a statue of him in his home town, which is actually smaller than his correct size. This photo is of him and his father.

Largest Insect
The South American Longhorn Beetle is recorded to be the largest insect out there, even though it isn't the longest or even the heaviest. All I know is that it can make me wet my pants 3.5 seconds faster than any other bug!

Largest Hand
China's Liu Hua has his hands full with one bodily distinction: the world's largest hand; which measured with an 11 inch thumb, 14 inch index finger, and he could flip the bird with his 6 inch middle finger. Fortunately, Liu Hua's hand has stopped growing, making it able for him to finally have plastic surgery, but will continue to need a few more surgeries to completely repair his hand. Until then, he will have to enjoy his crazy thumb wrestling skills as long as he can.

Largest Cookie
Immaculate Baking Company in Hendersonville, North Carolina wanted to host a fund raising event by baking the world's largest cookie. With the help of 30,000 eggs, 6,500 pounds of butter and 6,000 pounds of chocolate they were able to make their 37,000 pound cookie, which has a 102 foot diameter and if you look closely in the picture, you can see a man in a red shirt standing in the middle of it. Thankfully the fund raiser was successful but unfortunately the cookie was over shadowed with rumors of the world's largest cookie monster.

Largest Baby
Ladies be prepared, cause this story is going to make you go "OUCH"! So keep your legs crossed before you continue.....

Tatyana Barabanova of Siberia gave birth to her 12th child, Nadia, who weighed in at a whopping 17.1 pounds! This tot-zilla's size came as a complete shock to her mom, because Mrs. Barabanova states that none of her children have weighed more than around 8 pounds. So HALLELUJAH for C-sections, cause that is the only way the baby was going to make it out.

Largest Spider
This is the Goliath Birdeater which has a foot long leg span! This tarantula is native in South America and feasts on mice and lizards mostly. Luckily for us, they are NOT poisonous, but they still give me a big scoop of the heebbie-geebies. The female Birdeaters have an average life span of 15 to 25 years, but the males die soon after maturity having a lifespan of 3 to 6 years. You can actually see a life-size of the Goliath here. I don't even want to know the crunching sound this guy will make.

Largest Feet
At 7ft 6 ins, Matthew McGrory was not only the world's tallest actor, he also had the world's largest feet. McGrory had size 29½ shoes (European size 63). Matthew played in movies like Bubble Boy, Men in Black II, and in Big Fish. Unfortunately, Matthew passed away in August of 2005 to natural causes.

Largest Flower
The Rafflesia is the world's largest, heaviest, rarest and the one of the most stinkiest flowers in the world!!! It grows to be about 3.5 feet wide and weighs around 20 pounds. The Rafflesia is a parasitic plant without any leaves, stems or roots. Its only food source is it's nutrient-absorbing threads that absorb nutrients from the host on which it lives. Basically, the worlds biggest moocher.

Largest Dog
Zorba a Old English Mastiff weights in at 393 pounds. Not only does he weight 343 lbs but was also 8 feet 3 inches long from nose to tail! Potty training must have been a b!*$%.

Largest Restroom
Yes, you read right... the world's largest restroom! The congratulations go to the city Chong Qing in China and oddly enough, is made from all waste.... okay... well not THAT kind of waste, but recycled waste. It can support as many as 1,000 people using the restroom at the same time while also offering radio and TV to entertain its users. Holy crap.... literally.

Largest Bird
This award goes to the Argentavis with an amazing 25 ft wingspan. A single feather from such a bird is estimated to have been 1.5 meters long (60 inches) and 20 centimeters wide (8 inches). I just hope that it never lefts its "mark" over someone's poor car.

Darth Tater?

The other night I made baked potatoes, oh and not just ANY baked potatoes.... MY baked potatoes. Which pretty much consists of dumping anything and everything delicious on your spud. We sat down to eat our dinner and Curtis starts to dig in. We are both enjoying our meal and all of the sudden Curtis says,

"Did you pluck all of the eyes out?"

"Well" I said, "They weren't really big. I could barley see them, so I didn't bother"

Curtis looks down at his food and spits it out, "You do know that the eyes are poisonous, right?"

I laughed, "Ha ha, yea...right. Stores would have to put something on the bag if they were poisonous....they couldn't sell them if potatoes made you sick. There definently wouldn't be as many Irish and Polish people if that were true!"

Curtis shakes his head, "Well, um...I'm pretty sure they are, that is what my mom told me."

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"I'm sorry Curtis, but I just don't believe it. Can't be true! I'll prove it...we'll look it up!"

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And sure enough after some searching the web, we found it.... POTATOES CAN BE POISONOUS!

Apparently potatoes, if receive light or exposure to warm or cold temperatures will turn a shade of greenish hue. This will inform you that these little death spuds have released chlorophyll. The chlorophyll itself is not toxic, but with it comes a bitter toxic alkaloid called solanine. With these two thing combined they can cause problems with your circulatory and respiratory system. May cause diarrhea, headache, loss of sensation, paralysis, shock, stomach pain, subnormal body temperature, and even vomiting.

But don't worry your little heads yet; a person would have to eat, in one sitting, 4.5 pounds of potatoes to even get the first symptoms of solanine poisoning; which are drowsiness and itchiness behind the neck. But take into consideration that the greener the potato the less you have to eat to be poisoned and the smaller the child the less they have to eat.

The good news though if you do have some green potatoes you can simply peel it. A peeled potato is completely fine, so don't worry about wasting them. If they are green or have sprouts simple cut them in cubes and make "shake n' bake" taters. Which are a personal favorite of mine.

I hope this information doesn't scare you or keep you for from having those Idahoan Killers on your dinner table. Because potatoes are great for you and easy on the pocket book. But, what can I say...I guess for potatoes it's not easy being green.

How many of you out there already knew this?

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P.S. And just as a side fact, even after finding this information out, we still went down and finished off our dinners. So really it wont even give you a headache if you eat some. :)