There are three functions that you can use to get the current date and time.
NOW() gets both date and time.
CURDATE() works with only the date.
CURTIME() is for the time.
mysql>
mysql> SELECT NOW();
+---------------------+
| NOW() |
+---------------------+
| 2007-07-21 13:54:27 |
+---------------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)