Happy Birthday WWE Universe! Last Wednesday, we hit our 1-year anniversary on the Internets.

We set new records for Live Chat attendance TWICE last week for the Draft and Supplemental Draft.

And earlier today, we topped 400,000 members, adding more than 30,000 new members last week alone.

On behalf of the WWE.com crew and the WWE Universe team of moderators and Live Chat hosts, we sincerely thank you for being a part of WWE's online interactive community and helping it grow.

Let's celebrate the birthday officially Monday night, during our Raw Live Chat with Howard Finkel and myself, as we cover the action of Raw from London, England, just 6 days before Backlash!

The chat kicks off at 8:30 p.m. ET. We'll see you then!

Also, don't miss the chance to get your questions answered by

Hello everyone, it's CoreyC back with your WWE Universe news on "The Weekender."

We're getting ready for a winter blast here on the Connecticut "Gold Coast", with anywhere from 2 to 14 inches expected, depending on how much rain, sleet or snow hits us.

The WWE.com office is very quiet, as many staffers are working remotely from home so they don't get stuck in the bad weather. Of course, yours truly is a trooper ... a little snow won't scare me. Besides, in the "snow belt" area of Great Lakes, this is just a "dusting." :-)

Now, on to business...

We had a great debut last night of "The Finkel Factor" last night, and special thanks to Fink and The Million Dollar Man, Ted DiBiase for taking part. The transcript is still available. Of course, The Million Dollar Man challenged me to dribble

Hello WWE Universe!

This is the first of a new weekly feature on my blog, called "The Weekender", which will give you, the soon-to-be quarter of a million members of WWE Universe, the upcoming weeks' events on WWE Universe, as well as some humor, thoughts and insights on the latest happenings online and in the world around us.

Let's kick it off, shall we?

1) TRIBUTE TO THE TROOPS: A huge success!

If you've been reading all the Superstars blogs here on Universe from the frontlines, you've known that WWE is on its way home from Iraq after a very successful Tribute to the Troops mission. Our show yesterday for 5,000 servicemen and women in Baghdad was an experience to remember for all those involved.

A special thank you goes out to our men and women in uniform and their families for

Maybe it took some pulled strings from superagent Ari Gold (above), but anyhow, we're proud that news of WWE Universe graced today's pages of the Hollywood news source, Variety.

Go read the article on Variety.com. Here's a taste from writer Marc Graser:

WWE Universe includes the requisite profile pages, message boards, discussion groups, live chats and blogs but also includes active participation by more than 80 of the company's high-profile wrestlers.

Site attracts mostly men 18-35. But it's also proved popular among women, who account for 40% of its members.

"People are looking less for a passive experience and more for an interactive experience," said Brian Kalinowski, WWE general manager of digital media.

Digg up our story on Digg.com, if you're a member. Help spread the word.

Some random thoughts as I watch the newest Internet sensation, the Puppy Cam... (no, not like Jerry Lawler "puppies")

SERIES x 3: So now we have THREE Survivor Series Elimination Tag Matches on tap for this Sunday -- easily my favorite part of WWE's Thanksgiving Tradition. And the one that intrigues me most is not the one you'd first think of.

The Team Smackdown vs. Team Raw Traditional Elimination Match is easily the most interesting, in the areas of match strategy and teamwork:

As announced on Raw, in honor of the recent release of THQ’s “SmackDown vs. Raw 2009,” five Divas from SmackDown will take on five Divas from Raw in a Traditional Survivor Series Elimination Match.

Team Raw will be captained by Women’s Champion Beth Phoenix with

Hey WWE Universe! Here's some random thoughts as Philadelphia celebrates a World Series championship, and only flipped TWO cars during the victory parade! (just kidding).

DEMO TIME: If you're a PS3 or XBOX 360 player, good news! WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2009 is out for downloadable demo on XBOX Live or PlayStation Network. You've got about two weeks to practice before the real deal hits your local video game store. Of course, you can order the game now on WWEshop.com. 

Also, we're working on getting some of the development team at THQ to join WWE Universe for a Q&A Live Blog before the game hits shelves, so you can get all the details about the best-selling fighting game on consoles today. More on that next week!

VIDEO GOES WIDESCREEN: If you've checked out videos on

Hey! Did you see our WWE Universe ad last night during Raw? We're all TV stars now!

With the commercial for WWE's new interactive online community running during Raw, SmackDown and ECW, we're going to have a flood of new members on the site.

To them, I wish you welcome! You and the 189,200 other members part of the WWE Universe are part of the most vibrant and fastest growing online community dedicated to discussing the exciting action of WWE.

Plus, as a Universe member, you get the unique opportunity to talk to our Superstars in our Live Blogs, Just like last night's Raw Live Blog Live from Tuscon, many of WWE's top competitors stop online to say hello and chat about their latest exploits and rivalries.

For example, last night, we had visits from Shad Gaspard, D-Lo Brown, Katie Lea,

Some random thoughts as my mouth waters over the thought of these Krispy Kreme Cheeseburgers.... and the rarely-seen-in-the-wild Krispy Kreme Veggieburger.

I've been a big fan of HBO series Entourage and the new vampire drama, True Blood. So I was excited to hear that famed TV producer Norman Lear is talking with HBO about bringing a series about the 1970's era of sports-entertainment to life.

This from Reuters today:

Written by Aaron Blitzstein and produced by Lear's Act III Prods., the character-driven drama, tentatively titled "Everybody Hurts," revolves around a family running a pro-wrestling business in New York and peeks into the lives of the wrestlers and their fans.

Lear and Act III's Lara Bergthold, who are executive producing the project, had wanted to do a show

To paraphrase a famous Dorothy: "I don't think we're in the Fan Nation anymore, Toto."

WWE Fan Nation is officially now WWE Universe. Same great site, just with a new name and logo.

The addresses of your profiles remain the same as well, all still hosted at fans.wwe.com.

And yes, we're going to have merchandise! The first WWE Universe items are already in the WWEShop (in the new video game packages...check out the dog tags).

So when you go to WWE live events, you can wear your Universe membership with pride. More to come on new Universe items down the road!