Here's a nice, compact bit of WTF-ery I had to write for a prod issue today: Again: UPDATE TOP ( 1 ) dbo . someTable SET field3 = 'NEW' WHERE field2 = 'NEW' AND field3 = '' IF @@ROWCOUNT > 0 GOTO Again Can you guess from the code what awesomesauce issues I was working around? This was a reminder for me that sometimes there is time to do it right, but sometimes you just have to do it now. I need that lesson sometimes, as I tend to be a perfectionist. If you are trying to do it right , please don't...(read more)