Get list of applications in Applications folder

Scripting Forums AppleScript | Mac OS X
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#1

I had help writing this script and we don’t have an aswer to the error:

set x to 0
repeat until 5 = 0
	tell application "Finder"
		set the_list to get every file in alias ((startup disk as text) & ":Applications:") whose file type is "APPL"
	end tell
	set AppleScript's text item delimiters to "of folder"
	set list_count to count items in the_list
	set the_num to (random number from 1 to 39)
	set the_loc to (item the_num of the_list)
	set the_app to the name of the_loc
	tell application "Finder" to open the_loc
	delay 15
	try
		tell application the_app to quit
	end try
	set x to x + 1
	display dialog (x as text) & " applictions have opened. Continue?" giving up after 3
end repeat

The error keeps coming up as: