can I limit excerpt length with query_post function?

@alchymyth thanks for your reply. actually, one of your previous posts gave me an actual example of how to code this for what I was looking for. i read the wordpress codex all the times but sometimes it’s just not specific enough or have enough examples for me to understand. i’m a designer first, developer second…

<?php $text = $post->post_excerpt;
if (strlen($text) > 150) {
$text = substr($text,0,strpos($text,' ',150)); } ;
$text = $text . ' ...';
echo apply_filters('the_excerpt',$text); ?>

I meant to thank you earlier but needed sleep. so Thank You!