Merging Duplicate Cells

Hello,

I'm trying to write a Macro where a user selects a column, runs the macro, and it will scan downwards for duplicate row values and merge the cells.

So if A1, A2, A3 were all 27, I want to merge the cells and center align vert/horizontal keeping one instance of the value 27 in Cell A(123), and it would continue scanning down the column merging duplicates until a row with no value occurs.

As an aside, is there a good resource to quickly learn VBA syntax? I know Java/C++ but I'm just lost with VBA syntax (variable types / declaration, how to perform operations on cell ranges/selections, etc.).

Thanks,
Roger

(Using Excel 2003 if that matters, I don't believe it has a Merge&Center function)