Grain of rice or pea?

A pea sized amount is really too much. If you're concerned that you may have used too little, you can remove your heatsink and see what the coverage looks like. If the entire CPU appears covered, you used plenty (you'll need to clean it and reapply a fresh quantity of thermal grease after doing this - don't just put the heatsink back on). What kind of temps are you seeing, what CPU is it, and what heatsink?

Just put a little on the cpu then use a stiff piece of card board to smooth it out on the chip.

phenom II 955 OCed to 3.8. Using Intelburntest for a few rounds, it got up to 55 pretty quickly, and I think it idles around 37. Can't remember exactly what the heatsink is called, but it's a gemini II or something like that. My case wasn't big enough for a 212+. Also, I'm using thermaltake tg-1, so that's why I was really hoping for lower temps, considering I paid almost 20 bucks for just the grease.

55 under IntelBurnTest? That's not bad at all - I wouldn't worry about that.

Yeah, I know it's not horrible, but I really only ran like 5 tests on standard. I think it'd be a lot higher if I did it on high or very high.

I'm pretty sure it's a grain of salt  

^ Don't listen to me.

lol I thought of that too. How ridiculous.

I doubt it. It might be a bit warmer, but I'd be surprised if you went over 60. Honestly, I wouldn't worry about it unless you start seeing temps >65 or so.

Just tried prime for about 10 mins and never went over 52, so I guess I'm in good shape for now. We'll just have to wait till summer when it's blazing how in my room.

it depends on the surface area of the heatsink that is contacting the cpu as to how much paste you need.