Lightning struck my house, again. Do you have any ideas?

July 4, 2004 lightning struck my satellite dish and my wife. It took out the TV, satellite, VCR, alarm, phone and DVD player . My wife din’t enjoy the experience either. Last Saturday, lightning hit a tree in the back yard, traveled up a buried line and hit the house and the shop. This time it took out the shop power, the main breaker box, the TV, the desktop, two fans and the power cord for my netbook. Probably some other stuff but we can’t assess all the damage until the new breaker box is installed. Insurance is being good about it.
Has anyone used lightning arrestors in their main? Has it worked? How about lightning rods, either on the house or in the yard? I told the neighbor i was going to install a really tall rod on his house: he laughed:)
I had the TV on a Monster brand surge protector, but haven’t contacted them yet. The computer was on a normal surge protector. Have you ever used a surge protector designed for lightning protection and did it work?