Off topic, but why does Google return "About 187,000 results" for ("* is about to *" site:wired.com) and only "About 14,600 results" for ("is about to" site:wired.com)?

Isn't the second query less restrictive?

I believe the number of results is totally made up. If you click all the way to the last page you will find there are far fewer than whatever number is shown there.