I've also spent a while searching for a good simple calendar. Nothing really great. I settled on Calendarscope eventually. I liked it because it is very fast, very lightweight. Visually was perfect. The best part was the coloring of the dates for the small calendar "thumbnails" . It's the only program that would color the small dates according to the task inside that day. All other calendars would only shade in one color a day IF it has a task or not. This allows you to quickly glance at a month(s) view and be able to tell more or less the important thing that distinguishes that day by color. I would suggest you add that feature to your calendar if possible. Please make use of colors all over the place: for the individual tasks, for the quick viewing of the large wall day boxes, and the small day thumbnails. i think that would be a very distinguishing characteristic of a new calendar app.
check out the thumbnail view for calendarscope:
I'd be very interested in your idea of the simple calendar app. I've never found one (thank you!). I used calendarscope, then found it to be too much. I almost got vueminder, but it's such a huge freaking program....does too much.
I know you don't want syncing...but my question is this: I have to manage my own schedule and it can get complicated between work, side job, band rehearsal, family events. If i don't keep track, I will forget a lot of things. I'm getting tired of manually managing all these things, and I find all the calendar apps too cumbersome to make me want to use (Outlook, google, third party like calendarscope, etc.). So I really like your calendar idea. But I will eventually need it with me on my smartphone when I'm around. Are your intentions to completely avoid such functionality? And if so, how do you deal with situations like that?
Perhaps without syncing to specific protocols, can you think of a way to automate getting a text file on a smartphone that highlights the activities for that day? i don't know what, but it would be nice to somehow be able to get the information on a phone. How about an automated email delivery? it sends an email each day, and I can always go to my phone and see what I need to do. Something like that? Like you, what I really like about your idea is the simple quick entry of tasks without dealing with a bunch of forms and fields and slow, klunky interfaces. But I hope it's not too much to ask you to consider a way to get it on a phone somehow.
sidenote:
Another thing bothering me now is that I need to coordinate my time with multiple people. Some use outlook, some use google. Now that google and microsoft are battling each other, all the friendly syncing is also becoming a headache.
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at the kid throwing up. talk about keeping a straight face!
Likely true. 
