If you don’t want to fumble around just to learn the current date, you can display it in Leopard’s Menu Bar, right by the clock, to always have under your eyes.

What I did was to follow TUAW’s tutorial, but here’s a quick summary, just in case you’re in a hurry:
1. in System Preferences, International, Formats submenu. Select Customize date, then chose the format you want, and COPY it (select all, Cmd+C).

2. Press Ok, then from the same window, Customize for the Times part. Move the cursor before the time format, press Cmd+V(Paste). Press OK.

Easy peasy.