passing value to method in jquery coundown plugin

I'm using jquery countdown plugin with the following code.

$('#countbox').countdown({

layout:'<b>{d<}{dnn}:{d>}'+ 
    '{hnn}: {mnn} : {snn} </b>',
timeSeparator: ':', 
onExpiry: sold,
onTick: highlight,
serverSync: serverTime

});
function serverTime(pid) { 
    var time = null; 
    $.ajax({
        url: 'ajax_countdown', 
        async: false,
        data: ({pid:pid}),
        dataType: 'text', 
        success: function(text) { 
            time = new Date(text); 
        },
         error: function(http, m开发者_运维知识库essage, exc) { 
            time = new Date(); 
    }}); 
    alert(time);
    return time; 
}

Question 1: using this I'm calling the function serverTime and I want to pass the value pid to the method. How do I achieve this ?

Question 2 is related to the javascript Date function

$d4 ="2011,01-1,11,23,31,32";
alert(new Date(<?php echo $d4; ?>));

when I run the above code I get following result

Tue Jan 11 2011 23:31:32 GMT+0530 (India Standard Time)

But, the ajax call (as above) also returns the same result, yet in this case when I alert, I receive the following response

Invalid Date

alert(time);

Why is this different in the second case and how can I alter my code to receive my desired behaviour?

The "alert" fires before the ajax answer returns... include it into the success function... or call a function from success..

function serverTime(pid) { 
    var time = null; 
    $.ajax({
        url: 'ajax_countdown', 
        async: false,
        data: ({pid:pid}),
        dataType: 'text', 
        success: function(text) { 
            time = new Date(text); 
            alert(time);
            return time; 
        },
         error: function(http, message, exc) { 
            time = new Date(); 
    }}); 
}

i got answer myself for this Question 1: using this i 'm calling function serverTime . here i want to pass the value pid to the method.how to do this ?

The code snippet not yet tested but i hope it will work.

 $('#countbox').countdown({

    layout:'<b>{d<}{dnn}:{d>}'+ 
        '{hnn}: {mnn} : {snn} </b>',
    timeSeparator: ':', 
    onExpiry: sold,
    onTick: highlight,
    serverSync: function() { serverTime(pid); }

    });

function serverTime(pid) { 
    alert(pid);

}