Unity Main Menu?

[MR ZenWiz]

Maybe I'm just too pig-headed to see this, but after my last comment
on Unity, I thought I'd give it another try.

Aside from near constant flicker, due I think to something almost but
not quite changing as I move my mouse around the screen, I had one
rather jarring experience that I haven't been able to figure out.
Googling for this has been less than productive.

I have a simple question: where is the main menu?  You know, the one
where I can get to system preferences or administration, or
applications other then the 83 that show up when I click the Ubuntu
button in the top left corner and expand the apps section.  I couldn't
find it.

Worse, when I tried the application labeled Main Menu, that turned out
to be the main menu editor, not the menu itself.  Strangely enough,
the "Edit Menu" (or Edit Main?) application looked like just another
main menu editor, but with fewer options.  I did find Keyboard
Shortcuts, but I didn't play with them (yet).  Those would solve a lot
of "missing thing" issues, I imagine, for me at least.

Stumped.