I did a similar thing with my family: I'd hooked a GNU/Linux box up to the family Hi-Fi system to play our various music libraries, and when I was living overse

I did a similar thing with my family: I'd hooked a GNU/Linux box up to the family Hi-Fi system to play our various music libraries, and when I was living overseas I'd "call them" by ssh-ing in and asking mpd to start playing something. They'd come online and call me using Google Talk (the very first one, probably, because it was good, simple, built on open standards, and long dead).