All of the options for reading, writing, and commenting are housed within the Settings tab in the administrative back-end of your blog. For example, using the Reading sub-tab options will allow you to create a static front page for your site rather than the default blog. You can also use the discussion tab to turn off comments on your site, etc.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7_8I4_n2CI[/youtube]