Since in theory I need to do real work I am very motivated to do all sorts of other work ;-)
So I just created a new module for MDB2 .. this one abstracts the various differences in SQL function names .. so in order to get it to work you need install MDB2 CVS, call loadModule('Function') in the MDB2 driver instance and then:
replace NOW() with ".$DB->db_handle->function->now()." in all your SQL commands ..
regards, Lukas