How about Tcl/Tk. It's a an interpreted dynamic language that is cross-platform, including Windows, Mac, and Linux.

There are two things that Tcl/Tk makes easy: sockets and graphical interfaces.

You can literally have a convo with your jacuzzi server and have a simple interface in 10 lines of code. And of course you can make it as complex as you need.

Check out tcl.tk. I use it a lot (as in everyday), so if you need any help or examples to start off, I can help you out.