how to turn off comments?

I’m tired of the continuos barrage of spam, punk visitors, etc and have decided to turn off my blog. I think I’d like to use the template to maintain a “conventional” website. A couple of questions though –

1. Can I just gut out the php code in the index and make it a “conventional” website index page?

2. how to take away the ability of comments? Do I delete the database and comments.php file? Not sure how the best way to do this is.

Appreciate any help.