Ical - can not change alert times or alert type

In iCal - Every time I enter an event there are two alerts already selected at 11:30 at night. I am not able to change the time or the alert type. This happens 90% of the time but the odd time it does not do this…..really weird. I have looked thru all preferences etc… can not fix. Anyone know about this and how to fix?... would greatly appreciate any suggestions. thx I am on OSX 10.7.5

If you go ahead and create the event, can you then edit the time and alert type?

No idea why this is happening. I've been using iCal for more than 5 years without such an issue.

Hi -- when I create a new event it automatically has the same two alert types set up and I am not able to change them…its very weird i know - i used to have no problem but this has been for some time now.

Yes, what I meant was can you edit an existing event? If so, can you make a new event and let it use the alert it wants, then open it and edit it? I know that should not be necessary, but does it work?

The ultimate solution might be to reinstall iCal. I don't know how that works though. You might lose everything. There is an iCal plist file. I'm not sure what would happen if you deleted it and let iCal make a new one. You can try that if you want. It's found in your User folder (whatever you named it) in Library/Preferences. The file is called com.apple.iCal.plist

Thanks for the suggestions but I tried everything -- nothing works -- not to edit an existing or new in any way. I could try to reinstall -- I dont have much on there so not much of a loss. I will look into doing that. Thanks very much. I appreciate the time you took to help ; )