where to truncate?

[Mike Lyda]

I have Planet set up and pulling in feeds, but the only problem is the 
feeds were built by non-tech folks and so lack summaries and instead have 
content sections with like 5k of text.  see what I mean 
here  http://sculptorssource.com/   (note that one of the bloggers thought 
it was cool to include a 2592 x 1944 image.  cool, eh?)

So how do I truncate their giant entries down to a nice summary like 
this:  http://fullasagoog.com/   and how can I force their images to 
display at a certain (maxsize=180) size so the images don't take over?

Or.. can I check for a summary and if one exists then use it.. and if not 
then truncate the content down to say 60 words?