.Net Web Services - Json Dates

I'm probably not the only one that noticed this but have you ever looked at the dates that the .net json serializer returns dates?

 They look like this: \/Date(1239018869048)\/

I was working with backbone.js and mustache.js templating and needed a clean way to format the ugly dates returned above. I know you can switch the serializer to the json.net one (More details here) but that was not possible due to corporate rules. So I decided just to write a function in my backbone model that would clean it up. Here is a sample if your interested:

The Model:

var sample = Backbone.Model.extend({

    defaults: {

        Date: "",

        Subject: "",

        FormatDate: function () {

            //Format date from asp.net date (ie. /Date(1606953600000)/)

                var formatedDate = new Date(parseInt(this.Date.substr(6)));

                return $.datepicker.formatDate("dd-MM-yy",formatedDate);

            }

        }

});

  Now in the mustache template I can just use the FormatDate function in order to display a readable date like so.

 <td><div>{{ FormatDate }}</div></td>