With thanks to Jason Noble's post at http://pivotallabs.com/blabs/categories/capistrano. I created this updated version that pushes to alerts to my android device. I have a Jabber version in the works and with a little hacking iPhone support should work

deploy.rb

require 'httparty'
require 'ruby-notify-my-android'

set :application, "example"
set :repository,  ""

set :scm, :none

role :web, "localhost"
role :web, "example.tld"
role :app, "example.tld"
role :db,  "db.example.tld", :primary => true

def push_notify(hostname)
    NMA.notify do |n|
      n.apikey = YAML.load_file('nmaapi.yml')['apikey']
      n.application = application
      n.event = "Check Load Balencer Status"
      n.description = message
    end
end

desc "Retrieves the check.txt file to see if the host is in the load balancer"
  task :check_load_balancer do
    roles[:web].map(&:host).each do |hostname|
      url      = "http://#{hostname}/check.txt"
      response = HTTParty.get url
      message  = "Retrieving #{url}: #{response.message}"
      puts message
      push_notify message
  end
end
#--
# (C)2012 Dwight Spencer <dspencer@denzuko.co.cc>
#
# Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
# of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to
# deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the
# rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or
# sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
# furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
#
# The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in
# all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
#
#  THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
# IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
# FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
# AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
# LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
# OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN
# THE SOFTWARE.
#++

nmaapi.yml

---
  apikey: API_KEY_FROM_notifymyandroid.com