Creating the illusion of static

I started to wonder tonight.. is it possible to create the illusion of static pages using php?
something like.

halkeye.net/about.php/Gavin.html
or even just:
halkeye.net/about/Gavin.html

I know it CAN be done in a few different ways including apache directives, handlers, modules, etc
but can it be done without access to apache's config in any way?

For anyone else interested:
<Location /about.php>
Options +ExecCGI
</Location>
http://hpmud.halkeye.net/gavin.php/moo

this can be done as simple as to allow it to be set in .htaccess
thus removing the need to switch to root and editing apache's config every time