cell phone; simplifying my name

[gusl]

My Canadian cellphone is working as of yesterday. It's a very cool Samsung phone that doubles as PDA. Unlike the Treo, it folds along a different axis when in keyboard mode (though it is silly in that it closes whatever you're doing when you refold the phone). My student plan means I pay $28 for 250 daytime minutes (free weekends and after 6pm), and includes voice mail and caller ID: the main downside is the 3-year contract.

But it wasn't working at first because someone misspelled my name. I had to go to Bell shop in person to straighten it out. They didn't tell me the misspelling but I suspect it may be related to my bill being to "Rev. Gustavo Lacerda" (even ULC can't rectify this, since they can only make me a Minister).

RentalGuide (which, btw, is only good at taking your money) also misspelled my name as "Lacerpa".

Recently, in Pittsburgh, I couldn't get a prescription filled because the pharmacy disagreed with the doctor's office on whether or not I had a middle name (the pharmacy was right: I don't).

For the last couple years, I've been avoiding using the "de Melo" because it's asking for even more trouble. Mercifully, I think Canadian institutions so far have me simply as "Gustavo Lacerda" (except possibly for Immigration).

I think it would be a huge hassle to simplify my name in the USA or Brazil because of all the dependencies. Here are the nodes of this network of dependencies:

* birth certificate
* military certificate
* voter registration
* Brazilian ID
* Brazilian CPF
* passport
* DETRAN (Brazilian DMV)
* bank accounts
* US visa
* SS card
* PA DMV
* MA DMV
* mutual funds
* IRS
* health insurance
* life insurance
* Canada visa
* Canada study permit
* BC MSP
* doctor's offices
* university IDs

--

My SIN had to copy "Lacerda de Melo" exactly from my Study Permit. We managed to drop the "Pedrosa", though, since it was inside my FirstName field.