Helpful tip: when you forget to change the time zone on your laptop upon returning from a trip, you may be tempted to change the system time after Outlook has opened. You'll be very surprised (not) to find that this makes Outlook very unhappy, and you will start to receive reminders for a future event as though it has already happened.
Don't worry, dear reader- there is hope. That's why Microsoft created the Task Manager and the ability to end processes (though, properly, this is not an innovative featuire so much as a duplication of other OS's behavior). Sigh. Imagine a world where things just work...er, my MacBook Pro, actually.