[SOLVED] Too much space in featured block

[shopgirl]

How can I shrink the description section in the Featured homepage block? I found this in global.css but when I change the height number, I don't see it shrink.

#center_column div.products_block p.product_desc {
   height: 9em;

Unless I add this, but then it shrinks way too much and won't increase. I'm not good with CSS.

display: block;

I just want it to be half the size. Thanks!

[shopgirl]

Related... I'm trying to edit the .tpl to truncate the description, but no matter how low I make the number, it's not truncating. It is truncating the title for one of my items... I think it's doing that right.

                    
{$product.description_short|strip_tags|truncate:135:'...'}