Help Dismissing new notification?

[DroidRick]

I just changed the firmware to 2.2

A couple of things happened right away.

I got a new notification of a voicemail.
I checked the voicemail with my landline (free) and there was no new voicemail there.
I wanted to get rid of the notification on my phone (used to be a 'clear' option, not there now).
The only thing I could do was tap on the notification and cancel.
It dialed, then I canceled the call but the notification is still there!
How to remove?

A huge number of contacts started showing up that I had removed.
(Yes I disabled all of them in the Google accounts)
Many of them had the green card icon next to them.
Strangely, after a few minutes of going in and out of Contacts, these extra contacts became hidden once again!

 

[snapper.fishes]

Did you do a factory reset? It's recommended.

 

[DroidRick]

Did you do a factory reset? It's recommended.

No, not yet. Thanks for reminding me. Will I lose all my apps, contacts, data? If so, is there an easy way to back EVERYTHING up and restore them quickly? It's strange, because the contacts that had sorted themselves out came back again. I went into contacts and now, for the first time I got a new category! SIM card! It wasn't there for the first couple of hours.