Recommend events calendar and notification software?

I’d like to downlad and install a program that would let me fill in events by date and time (dentist appointments, reminders, etc.) and have it pop up with notifications beforehand and at the time. I don’t want to do it through a mailer like Yahoo or gmail. I would prefer it to be self-contained. And I don’t really care about drawing calendar pages; I have a nice wall calendar for that. I just want to put events in and then have it pop up and remind me when the time is near, and also let me search and display upcoming dates. Something like an Outlook calendar would be all right, but not Outlook, thanks.

Any recommendations?