SQL provides us with a very powerfull tool to do this too: the union all statement. You can use this to generate, for example, a single statement that inserts multiple rows like this:

insert into dbo.table( col1, col2, col)

select 'some', 'value', 10

union all select 'another', 'value', 11

and an update statement can be constructed like this:

update tbl

set

col1 = t.col1,

col2 = t.col2

from dbo.table tbl

inner join (

select 'some' as col1, 'value' as col2, 10 as col3

union all select 'another', 'value', 11

) t on (t.col3 = tbl.col3)

One big advantage can be that this fires any triggers on the table only once for the entire set and not over and over for each row. Having this sort of tricks available can realy save your day.

edit: sorry to duplicate sql's idea, I hadn't opened the 2nd page of results yet.